“Yesterday, Sepp Blatter resigned as president of FIFA. It would be easy and cheap to gloat about this; it would also be fun, so let’s do it. Blatter’s reign of merry larceny had seemed like it would go on forever. He’d been reelected for a fifth term only the previous week, despite the blinking neon elephant of a U.S.-led corruption investigation that resulted in the arrests of several powerful FIFA officials two days before the election. He’d been widely loathed and tangled in scandal from literally the moment he rose to power in 1998, when he refused to address rumors that his Qatari backers paid $50,000 for votes on his behalf. He always seemed to enjoy it, as though winking at critics and dancing around accusations was a hobby he tackled with zest. It gave his charm a little sparkle of superiority. It was one of the things that made him so pink.” Grantland – Brian Phillips

How a curmudgeonly old reporter exposed the FIFA scandal that toppled Sepp Blatter
“The biggest news story of the year was breaking, but the journalist responsible was fast asleep. It was just after dawn on May 27 when Andrew Jennings’s phone began ringing. Swiss police had just launched a startling raid on a luxury hotel in Zurich, arresting seven top FIFA officials and charging them and others with running a $150 million racket. The world was stunned. The waking world, that is. If Jennings had bothered to climb out of bed, he wouldn’t have been surprised at the news. After all, he was the man who set the investigation in motion, with a book in 2006, ‘FOUL! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals,’ followed by an exposé aired on the BBC’s ‘Panorama’ program that same year, and then another book in 2014, called ‘Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family.’” Washington Post

FIFA’s corruption is not going to ruin your soccer
“Last week’s events could have been a turning point. After the United States issued indictments against 14 senior members of FIFA, the organization could have chosen to move in a different direction, toward change, toward reform, toward decency. The remaining members might have ousted the incumbent, the man who led FIFA, guardians of the world’s most popular sport, toward its current charges of corruption and deceit. Instead, FIFA elected Sepp Blatter to his fourth term as president. A mere four days later, the man FIFA had just endorsed abruptly announced his intention to resign.” Soccer Football

Ex-FIFA Official Jack Warner Threatens to Spill ‘Avalanche’ of Secrets
“Jack Warner, the former FIFA vice president who was among 14 people indicted by a United States grand jury as part of an inquiry into corruption in world soccer, says he knows why the organization’s president, Sepp Blatter, announced plans to step down from soccer’s governing body. ‘Blatter knows why he fell. And if anyone else knows, I do,’ Mr. Warner said in his home country of Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday, referring to Mr. Blatter’s decision this week to resign after 17 years at the helm of FIFA, soccer’s governing body. Mr. Warner, who said he feared for his own life, also said he had evidence linking FIFA to his country’s 2010 election.” NY Times