'The game is up! FIFA's darkest day shames football' - World reacts to sport's crisis

Wednesday was a hugely damaging day for football's world governing body with almost every hour presenting fresh blows to the organisation fronted by president Sepp Blatter.

Perhaps most strikingly, UEFA delivered a stinging verdict on the shocking events, slamming FIFA and calling for Friday's presidential election to be postponed. But it was also the language used in their official statement which provided a hammer blow after a day of turmoil.

"Today's events are a disaster for FIFA and tarnish the image of football as a whole," UEFA said in the statement. "These events show, once again, that corruption is deeply rooted in FIFA's culture. There is a need for the whole of FIFA to be 'rebooted' and for a real reform to be carried out."

The world's media, unsurprisingly, did not hold back in presenting its assessment of the latest scandal at FIFA, with words that will make anyone interested in the game wince.

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God bless America! It looks like they just got interested in soccer. The nation so often derided for not understanding football can call the game whatever it likes if it roots out the corruption that has bedevilled FIFA — slogan “For the Good of the Game” — for so long. Perhaps that was what was always needed to shake up FIFA like never before; an outsider. It came in the shape of the United States law enforcement agencies, which smashed into the global sport’s cosy world of backhanders and bribes, grubby executives on the take, which has existed right in front of our noses for decades.

The jaw-dropping indictments published in the US laid bare the extent of FIFA’s graft and corruption that has flourished under Blatter’s watch. From bribes paid during the race for the 2010 South Africa World Cup to the 2011 presidential election and the model of kickbacks on TV and sponsorship deals that has been adopted by generation upon generation of FIFA executives, the modus operandi of world football’s governing body is laid bare. FIFA has gone from a source of pride to an embarrassment. The mood has changed and for Blatter, whatever the outcome of the vote on Friday, this is unlikely to be the end of the story. Following his grandstanding speeches at FIFA gatherings, Blatter likes to end with a flourish and the catchphrase: “For the game, for the world”. Over 24 dramatic hours, for FIFA and Blatter the game has definitively changed. Or as James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Wednesday: “The field was hijacked. This investigation has been long and painstaking and it is not over.”

It is possible that, despite appearances, the FBI are right now listening to confessions or sifting through evidence that will, one day, make Blatter’s FIFA position untenable. It is possible that there are brave men inside national associations, who are contemplating joint action, maybe even a boycott of a major tournament, to bring this crisis to a head. It is possible that FIFA’s brand is turning so toxic that sponsors will ultimately withdraw, taking with them the money that fuels the monster. It may be that there is a hand waiting to knock on Blatter’s door, with the warrant that will bring an end to his rogue regime, his five-star North Korea, his evil empire. That is the hope. This is FIFA’s high noon, the FBI are Gary Cooper and the bad guys will surely get it in the end.

If Wednesday’s sweeping arrests of several FIFA officials at a five-star hotel in Zurich turn out to be the moment when everything finally started to unravel for Blatter, it would be hard to imagine a more appropriate setting. Mr. Blatter, the president of soccer’s governing body, has long been accused of running his organization like a Swiss bank, providing a minimum of transparency when it comes to the billions of dollars that flow into and out of its coffers every year. The criticism — and the litany of charges being levelled against FIFA — seem unlikely to induce Mr. Blatter to step down. As Alexi Lalas has said, “From a reputational standpoint, I don’t think it could get any worse for him, nor do I think that he would care if it did.”

Until early yesterday morning, the general feeling among the delegates and dignitaries convening in Zurich – let alone the scores of scribes – was that Blatter, despite his mountain of critics, would once again walk off into the sunset to enjoy a final hurrah running world football’s governing body, just as he has done for the last 17 years. Yet, when wakes up today and prepares to open FIFA’s annual congress, the 79-year-old Swiss will find himself clinging to power as he tries to fend off renewed calls for his resignation after the most unexpected day of corruption allegations, even by the standards of FIFA’s tarnished reputation.

Soccer is a game, a beautiful game — but it isn’t only a game. It is a global cultural obsession, and its quadrennial showcase, the World Cup, is one of the biggest entertainment spectacles on the planet. Hungry for prestige, revenue, tourism and construction projects, nations large and small, free and unfree, compete to host the World Cup and related tournaments, which coincidentally yield billions of dollars for the International Federation of Association Football, more commonly known by the French acronym FIFA, and its component bodies. In short, FIFA’s decisions affect large quantities of the world’s scarce resources — including, sometimes, the resources of countries with priorities even more pressing than sports. A business that big, and that consequential, must operate transparently and accountably. Yet FIFA’s recent decision to bury a report by its own ethics investigator, Michael Garcia, and Mr. Garcia’s resignation in protest, typifies this ostensible Swiss non-profit’s efforts to police itself.

Even The New Yorker chipped in