Well, that’s all right then: Blatter reassures the world ‘it’s just a family tiff’

good news from Zurich where Fifa’s owner (or is that king, I can never remember) has reassured the world that the world football organisation is not in crisis after all. Well, that really is quite some relief, because I was under the impression that dollars, euros, roubles, pounds and Swiss francs were sloshing around with abandon and that Blatter was a crook. Well, apparently not, it seems. In view of his upcoming coronation on Wednesday to renew his kingship (or would that be ownership – please, someone, set me straight on this one), he thought that it might help that the allegations that

Very he and his cronies were stuffing their pockets and those of others with bribes and backhanders simply wasn’t true. On the other hand two chaps called Jack Warner, up until now his deputy king, and Mohamed Bin Hammamm, who was rather hoping he would be crowned on Wednesday, are most definitely wrong ’uns, according to Blatter, and should not be tolerated in polite society. Or not as the case may be. Fifa’s secretary general (or is that Blatter’s accomplice) insists that comments he had previously made about Bin Hammamm – that the man was a complete scoundrel who had bought the 2022 World Cup final for Qatar – had been ‘taken out of context’. What he meant was that Bin Hammamm was a nice chap, but sometimes he didn’t seem to know how to hold a sherry glass. All very innocent, you see. Nothing to worry about. No, sir. The problem is that Fifa’s main sponsors, Coca Cola and Adidas are beginning to get just the teensiest bit worried. And if there is any stuffing of money by some into the back pockets of others going on, at the end of the day it is their money. So, well, you know, let’s not overstate this, but business is business, and Coke and Adidas would, all things being equal, not want to have their brands associated with what is essentially a gang of crooks. Allegedly. Better get that in. I’m not daft, you know.