Sepp Blatter as mad King Lear. “What crisis?”
” Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinned against than sinning.” (King Lear)
Sepp Blatter could very well use those words for his re-election happening tomorrow. He’s made himself the victim.
On a day unfolding with developments thick and fast, the one that stuck out was Jack Warner suspended by FIFA from all football related activities writing a letter to officials of the Caribbean Football Union soliciting votes for Sepp Blatter. This was after Warner had gone on record opposing Blatter’s candidacy. Again it was Chuck Blazer acting as whistleblower and alerting Jerome Valcke to Warner merrily making a mockery of his suspension.
The other was the English and thereafter the Scottish FA coming up with statements to delay the election and concentrate on the business of reforming FIFA. But they were the lone voices apart from a few watchdog organizations like Transparency International. A few big sponsors like Coca Cola and Adidas also expressed concern over the state of affairs. Clearly, this is too little too late to change the way FIFA conducts itself. It did not sway Michel Platini who ruled himself out as a candidate till 2015 and like Blatter seems to have developed a tin ear.
“Scandals? I only know what I see in the newspapers and you work for the newspapers. You know more than me.”
So barring a miracle Arab spring like happening Sepp Blatter will win a fourth term tomorrow. Jacque Rogge, the IOC president said that this could well be a “Salt Lake moment” for FIFA to clean ship. But “what crisis?” and “keeping it within the family” does not sound like an epiphany. It sounds more like a treacherous Shakespearean tragedy. In Act IV Scene VI of King Lear, Mad King Lear enters wearing a crown of fumitory, or fumaria officinalis, along with “harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers” and “darnel”.