Fri, Jun 03, 2011 page20

• FIFA turns on English ‘liars’

  • By David Conn / The Guardian, ZURICH, Switzerland
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  In damp, drizzly Zurich, the English press — or to give us our correct FIFA title, the lying, cheating, allegation-concocting English press — were wondering how much support Football Association (FA) chairman David Bernstein would find for his case that the re-coronation of Sepp Blatter should be postponed.

  Not a lot, came the consensus within our gang of rabid liars. Yet none of us had thought through what the Blatter loyalists were orchestrating.

  Bernstein enunciated his reasons, in those gentle tones the late, lamented Manchester City fanzine, Bert Trautmann’s Helmet, used to compare to Michael Palin’s “Fwee Wodewick” in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

  “I’ve been advised by some not to speak, but this is a democratic organization,” Bernstein began, demonstrating his need for a little more time to gain his bearings in Blatter’s soccer family.

  “We are subject to universal criticism from governments, sponsors, media and the wider public,” he went on. “The election has turned into a one-horse race. I ask for a postponement, for an additional candidate or candidates to stand in an open or fair process.”

  There was some applause and then an avalanche of anti-English attacks. After a paean to Blatter from Yves Jean-Bart of Haiti, came Constant Selemani Omari, president of the FA of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  “I want to say to the representative of England that we are ill at ease with people who wield unfounded accusations,” he said.

  Costakis Koutsokoumnis of Cyprus produced the breathtaking line: “What a beautiful English word, allegations.”

  Then he argued that the serial scandals are all media lies.

  “Somebody stands up, says a few things in the press, then these things take ... a seed in our minds, without most of the time, a single shred of truth,” he said.

  It was, in its way, quite funny, until the intervention of Julio Grondona, FIFA vice president and Argentine heavyweight of the Blatter regime.

  There was genuine menace in his address.

  “We always have attacks from England,” Grondona said. “Mostly with lies and the support of a journalism which is more busy lying than telling the truth. Would you please leave the FIFA family alone.”

  The vote, when it came, was a shock. Fifteen associations supporting postponement? Something to build on.

  Blatter took the stage to promise reforms.

  “Our ship is in difficult, even troubled waters,” he said. “I am the captain, weathering the storm. We must put this ship back on its course. I want to get this ship out of choppy waters and put it once again into a safe harbor, so we can once again build our pyramid.”

  Bernstein, our liars’ crowd agreed, can be pleased with 15. Only 172 against him, all together in that choppy boat in Zurich, ready to wave Captain Blatter through for another four years and build their pyramid.
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