FIFA scandal: Sepp Blatter wins another term as president

Writen by sadataley 12:25 AM - 0 Comments

(CNN)—Meet Sepp Blatter. Still the most powerful man in the world's most popular game, scandal be damned. You could also call the 79-year-old Swiss national a survivor, after he clung to his job as FIFA's president Friday. He won a fifth term despite a week marked by arrests, investigations in the United States and Switzerland and questions about whether he was the right man to rebuild the reputation of soccer's governing body. It wasn't a slam dunk, and Blatter failed to get the required 140 votes in the first round of voting to prevail. (He got 133, compared to 73 for Jordan's Prince Ali bin al-Hussein.) But with the writing on the wall -- since Blatter would only need a simple majority of votes in the next round to win -- Prince Ali conceded. "I take the responsibility to bring back FIFA," Blatter said, promising he would leave after his four-year term ends. "And I am convinced we can do it." Just how did Blatter survive?  He is a masterful political operator and his knack for getting off clean amid scandal -- or at least without being directly tied to wrongdoing in the soccer world -- is uncanny. Then there's the matter of the voters and their loyalties to Blatter. Part of it is the system itself: There are 209 member associations within FIFA, and each of their votes counts the same. That means a vote from China, with about 1.4 billion citizens, carries the same weight as a vote from the Cook Islands, with about 11,000 citizens. And, corruption or not, the FIFA gravy train provides quite a bit of gravy. The organization's executive committee members get $300,000 a year plus $500 per day for expenses. If you're on official FIFA business, you can expect flying first class and staying in five-star hotels. The member associations benefit big-time, including $500,000 payouts linked to World Cup profits. That's a sizable chunk of change that goes a lot further in places where there are fewer people to share it. No surprise, then, that many of these organizations -- especially in Africa, Asia and the Americas -- have been loyal to Blatter, given his commitment to divvying up the largesse of FIFA, which has $1.5 billion in the bank.

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