What Next for FIFA, UEFA and Investigators After Sepp Blatter's Election Win?

And now the real chess match finally gets underway. After last week’s drama, intrigue and excitement ultimately ended with the election result everyone expected but no one wanted, the battle lines have now been drawn for a duel that will likely dominate for weeks, months and even years to come.

Opponents of FIFA president Sepp Blatter tasted blood in the water when the United States Department of Justice presented nine past or present FIFA representatives (and five individuals involved in sports marketing) with bribery and corruption charges last Wednesday in early-morning raids that sparked a desperate rush to further puncture Blatter’s listing ship prior to Friday’s presidential election.

The assault was fierce, direct and well-coordinated, but it was never likely to be enough to reverse decades of back-channel diplomacy, and so it proved. Blatter won the election—albeit with less than two-thirds of the vote, an indication that he, however slowly, is losing his grip—and secured his fifth four-year term in office.

The 79-year-old immediately went on the offensive, promising to respond swiftly and decisively against the evil forces trying to bring down his organisation.

Suggesting the investigations against FIFA were the workings of those with an ax to grind, Blatter told Swiss station RTS (via CNN): "I am not certain, but it doesn't smell good.”

On those who had criticized him over the last few days, he added ominously: "I forgive everyone but I'll not forget."

Speaking to the BBC a few days later, Blatter’s daughter, Corinne, said: "Nobody is without fault but ... he's not the person who is taking money.

"All these things happened just to discredit him so that he would resign. But I can tell you in about [two or three] weeks no one will talk about it anymore.”

That appears Blatter's twin lines of defence at this time: Discredit the investigations by casting aspersions about their motivations and simultaneously deny any knowledge of any activities going on among his subordinates. Over time, perhaps the storm will pass.

Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images

Others currently in the eye of said storm have adopted one of these tactics, wondering aloud about the prejudices of those investigating them. That was certainly the argument of former Qatar prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who went on American television over the weekend to claim racism was at the root of the investigations.

“See how they don’t talk about Russia with Qatar,” Sheikh al-Thani told Fox News. “We support of course Russia, to have their turn in 2018. But we see the talk ... is all about Qatar, because it comes to a small, Arab, Islamic country. That’s how people feel.”

Jack Warner, the former CONCACAF president who may yet hold the key to this whole saga, opted for a similar angle of response, albeit while mistakenly using an article from the satirical news website the Onion to make his point in a video address to his supporters.

“If FIFA is so bad, why is it that the USA wants to keep the FIFA World Cup?” Warner asked (via the Guardian) at one point, pointing to an Onion piece headlined “FIFA frantically announces 2015 World Cup in USA.”

Defending himself in a rambling eight-minute speech, at one point Warner added: “Nothing I have done within FIFA has been inconsistent with the international culture of FIFA.”

If the rest of the video was a defiant address to his supporters, this felt like a veiled warning to some of those within FIFA’s Zurich headquarters.

While the defence of those under suspicion, at least during this lull in proceedings between arrests being made and charges being fleshed out into full-formed cases to be responded to, it remains to be seen what the response will be of those who want more immediate reform within FIFA, now that Blatter has secured his seat for another four years.

Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images

Most are looking toward European football’s governing body, UEFA, the strongest opponents of Blatter in the weeks and months leading up to Friday’s election, for direction—but it remains to be seen whether its chance to effect real change has passed (for now).

The bold next step from UEFA would be to boycott the World Cup, but that is a nuclear option that has been publicly threatened but privately cautioned against. That is mainly because any boycott is unlikely to be adhered to by all members, and especially some high-profile ones.

Russia, Spain and France—to name just three—are all believed to have gone against the “party” line and voted for Blatter on Friday, per the Mail on Sunday, and would therefore be unlikely to agree to such an aggressive course of action (for all associations, however, there would be some discomfort at the possibility of denying individuals their one chance to play in a World Cup).

Any UEFA boycott (especially one predicated on also setting up a rival tournament) would falter without the participation of all of its member nations, especially its biggest. Rumours abound that many South American nations also voted against Blatter last week: If UEFA could get those countries to join their boycott, that might bolster its chances, but that too appears unlikely.

“I am told that most of Europe voted against Blatter and all of Latin America … those are the two continents that are the World Cup,” English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke said prior to Saturday’s FA Cup, again, via the Guardian. “We won’t be pulling out of anything on our own, because we’re jolly good chaps, because if the FA did that FIFA will just carry on, won’t they?

“But if UEFA wanted to pull out of the World Cup, we could certainly do it with them.”

A UEFA congress is planned this week, prior to Saturday’s Champions League final, where the boycott option is likely to be discussed in some form or another. Nevertheless, it is probably not wise to pin too many hopes on UEFA to be the white knights in this situation: After all, UEFA president Michel Platini was one of the 14 ex-co members who voted for the 2022 World Cup to go to Qatar back in 2010. Blatter, if it also needs reminding, is believed to have voted for the United States.

If UEFA’s opposition begins to recede, then the media interest (especially in the West) is only likely to get even more vociferous. At the weekend, the Sunday Times, who have led the charge against FIFA in recent years, devoted nine pages of its 29-page news section to reports on the FIFA situation, including an illuminating insight into Blatter’s psyche.

“We are mountain people,” Jean-Paul Brigger, a childhood friend of Blatter’s, told the newspaper. “We are fighters by nature, we always survive...when the avalanche hits, you can’t think twice before deciding whether to go left or right.

“If you climb the mountain, you must suffer…if you’re at the summit, the wind whistles, it’s stormy; if you stay there long you have to endure a lot. FIFA president, that is the highest in football.”

The message was clear: Blatter will not be dislodged easily. After a week of point and counter-point in the media, perhaps we are slowly returning to where we were on Wednesday morning: Hoping that the U.S. criminal investigation finds a way to reach a man, and a system, that continues to elude everyone else.

“I think everyone will wait and see what the FBI and the Swiss come up with,” FA boss Dyke added. “Everybody was interested in the FBI and the attorney general [Loretta Lynch] because she was a piece of work, wasn’t she, you wouldn’t want to be on the other side of her.”

Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

Lynch and her team now appear to be the great hope for the outcome many now seek. Much of that work will be done in private, although the media will attempt to trace similar steps, perhaps uncovering evidence of their own in places. In that regard, focus appears to be growing on a $10 million sum that FIFA paid to CONCACAF on behalf of organisers of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

All parties deny the sum was a bribe, yet they do not seem to deny its existence while failing to adequately explain what it was for instead. The current line—that it was a "development" grant—is hard to swallow. Why was that South Africa's responsibility?

Meanwhile, according to the Times, some within FIFA have indicated that such a transaction could not have been authorised without the agreement of a high-ranking executive committee member—perhaps even the president himself. In theory, at least, it seems a promising lead to investigate—especially considering Warner, should he also be involved, appears to be a man who will not hesitate to trade something to save his own skin.

On Sunday, the president of the South African FA, Danny Jordaan, confirmed to the Sunday Independent that FIFA had paid such a sum, because he was not authorised to make payments of such size on behalf of the South African FA.

"

In closing, this is the statement issued on the said matter. #weDidNotBribe pic.twitter.com/S9aDAjEEqR

— RSA Min of Sport (@MbalulaFikile) May 31, 2015"

“I haven’t paid a bribe or taken a bribe from anybody in my life,” Mr Jordaan said. “We don’t know who is mentioned there [in the indictment] and I don’t want to assume that I am mentioned. They can ask all the executives of FIFA that I have engaged with.”

Jordaan also pointed out that the payment was made long after South Africa won hosting rights: “How could we have paid a bribe for votes four years after we had won the bid?”

These are more questions, though; they are not answers. The authorities will not be so easily diverted, and perhaps that is why after a week of excitement it is they, much more so than UEFA and marginally more so than the investigative media, who are once again the main hope for finally bringing those at the top of FIFA's pyramid to task.

As Lynch said in a statement last Wednesday: "Let me be clear, this indictment is not the final chapter in our investigation."