Infamy, infamy…

I have woken up to find that April Fools Day has returned. Fifa President Sepp Blatter says he was “shocked” by the comments of US prosecutors following the arrests of officials under an American anti-corruption warrant. I’ll bet he was. I mean, they are only accused of some minor offences including bribery, racketeering and money-laundering involving tens of millions of dollars since 1991. It’s not as if it’s anything serious.

Not only is Blatter shocked by the comments of prosecutors, he is concerned about “a hate campaign” orchestrated by European officials. In Blatter World, these wretched European officials just launch these hate campaigns for the sake of it. And the great man was shocked by the comments of US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said: “They corrupted the business of worldwide soccer to serve their interests and to enrich themselves.” The only reason the arrests took place was “to interfere with the congress”, the alleged wide scale corruption formed no part of this murky business.

And it gets better. Lynch referred to the “World Cup of Fraud” to which Blatter replied: “Of course I am shocked. I would never as Fifa president make comments about another organisation without being certain of what has happened.” Now my limited experience of FBI investigations is probably insufficient to enable me to make deep and insightful observations on the specifics of these allegations, but I am reasonably confident in assuming that in this particular instance there is a substantial amount of evidence that would be sufficient to put some people in the dock. You would not seek to convict people on the basis of patchy or threadbare information. You would need to be sure that there was, as the legal eagles put it, a reasonable chance of securing convictions.

I am more concerned that Blatter was so easily re-elected. Who are these people who placed their crosses next to his name on the ballot paper and what sort of people do they really want to be running their organisation? “Ooh, who shall we vote for? That fellow Blatter seems a decent cove and there has been barely a whiff of controversy since he assumed control of Fifa. I’ll ask Mr Mugabe what he thinks.”

It’s the Cold War again, isn’t it? Those USA spoilsports start asking awkward and inconvenient questions – just fancy involving the FBI! What are they like? – and Mr Putin stands firmly behind ‘Our Sepp’, as he probably describes him. Expect the Blatter missile crisis anytime soon.

The good news is that there is a man who says he is the man to sort out the current crisis, but the bad news is that it’s Blatter himself. Michel Platini has now decided to congratulate the man he said should quit and Blatter has forgiven him (but not forgotten, he adds with a sinister undertone) so there is no chance of a UEFA campaign to unseat the old crook. We’d have to launch a campaign to get rid of Platini first and that won’t happen.

Nothing, it seems, will encourage Blatter to resign. Even if it emerged that he had similar issues to Gary Glitter or Rolf Harris, you’d back the old boy to survive and attack everyone else for having the temerity to criticise him. He’s not Mr Teflon because everything does stick to him but the thing is he doesn’t give a toss. Unless there ardmore revelations that directly implicate him, you can’t see him going anywhere.

Blatter seems to like his infamy and does feel like everyone has got it in for him. He’s right about that and with good reason.