Blatter. surprise surprise

FIFA has never been about the fans though.  It has always been about the elites of the day imposing their particular worldview on football.  Originally this basically represented an old fashioned Imperial prestige ding-dong between England and France as to who should run the game (why England didn't compete in the World Cup till the 50s) in which everyone conspired in a sometimes openly racist manner to marginalise the development of the game in Africa and Asia as well as trying to keep the influence of the Soviet Bloc to the bare minimum.  So just like the FA it was largely a project of old Imperialists and Cold War warriors from across Europe to defend existing power structures and they held on long after it became clear how outdated this approach was. This built up a huge well of resentment against the influence of Europe which Blatter still feeds off now to stay in power.  Then everyone woke up to how much money could be made from the global game so now it is a stitch up job between corrupt national and league administrators, massive TV interests and corporate sponsors.  The only realistic way to change this is to slowly chip away at one or two of those powerful interests so it is no longer in their interests to engage with FIFA anymore.  This requires long term planning, a building of global alliances, some actual understanding of the political realities of modern football and an awareness of the need to compromise.  The only people who seem unaware of this reality are English football administrators, politicians and press who seem baffled that we can't just click our fingers and get what we want anymore and whose attempts to engage in football politics amounted to cosying up to Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer while at the same time sounding off about ethics in FIFA.....Not surprising then that England is perceived as somewhat lacking in credibility on this issue.