FIFA might be losing its figurehead in Blatter, but the whole body needs fumigating

While no-one could suggest it was patrolling the very cutting edge of satire, I rather enjoyed the comic character Lee Nelson’s intervention at the latest FIFA meeting. Stepping on stage as Sepp Blatter addressed his audience to shower the man who likes to call himself Mr President in fake dollar bills not only took an enormous amount of chutzpah, it made a telling point. It was a reminder that the central issues surrounding the world governing body still remain.

And no-one should be distracted by speculation about who will be taking over from Blatter. This is a body that needs far more than simply a change of man at the top. After 20 years of corrupt governance, it needs a complete, top to bottom overhaul.

I was at the FIFA annual congress earlier in the year, the one which had the uncomfortable prelude for the delegates of seven of their number being lifted on the orders of the FBI the night before discussions began. And while I was there I was witness to a most extraordinary thing.

The FIFA annual congress must rank as the world’s most expensive conference to stage. Not much more than a three-day talking shop, it nonetheless eats through a budget of some $57 million. It seemed to me, watching it unfold, that such a figure must have been invented. How could you spend that sort of money on a lame opening ceremony featuring syncopated cowbells and a bunch of schoolkids swirling flags? How does a three day natterfest featuring several hundred blokes in suits sitting around discussing changes to the offside rule cost that sort of money?

[STORY: Comedian Lee Nelson gatecrashes FIFA HQ, covers Sepp Blatter in money]

But then I went to one of the main delegate hotels in Zurich, and saw exactly why it is so expensive. There was a signpost put up in reception pointing the direction to the “FIFA cash desk”. Following the lead down the corridor, there it was, exactly as advertised, a desk with a couple of officials sitting behind it manning a cash register. In front of the desk, a line of delegates had formed, all of them patiently waiting their turn to receive from the till their daily allowance of $3,000 in crisp new bills.

That comes without question, without the need to show receipts.

Quite why each and every delegate needs such a subsidy is hard to fathom (representatives from the FA, incidentally, do not take up the offer and leave their cash unclaimed). Zurich is awash with lobbyists from broadcasters, marketing firms and potential host nations anxious to stand any delegate dinner, drinks, whatever they need. Most of them have had their travel and hotel expenses met by their home association. So the $15,000 each of them receives in cash simply for turning up is little more than a gift from the executive committee, a not-so-subtle inducement to vote to retain the status quo.

And it is that sort of institutionalised venality that needs to be addressed. No point simply swapping Blatter for Platini or Maradona, if football remains merely as a vehicle for the filling of pockets. There is absolutely no need to spend $57m – enough to build 114 floodlit 3G pitches, enough to supply 1,114,000 match quality footballs, enough to gift more than a million deprived children across the world a new pair of boots every single year - on a conference.

Whoever thought for a moment that a body that is supposed to be promoting sport should pay its largely self-appointed delegates $3000 a day cash expenses? Seriously Sepp? It is the kind of mad inversion of priorities that comes with the obscene intoxication of power.

Blatter clearly shoulders much of the responsibility for the last twenty years of open invitation to noses to be shoved into troughs. He traded privilege and access to easy money for votes to keep him in power. In order to remain in charge, Blatter allowed a system to flourish in which the likes of Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer were able to line their pockets without proper scrutiny or inquiry. He turned a blind eye in exchange for support. But that system he established is still in place. That system is still perpetuated by the many below Blatter who benefit from its complacency and greed. Simply removing him and allowing someone else to preside over the same nonsense will not solve anything.

As is entirely characteristic, as his tenure comes to a conclusion, Blatter is making public noises about the need to root out corruption and clean up FIFA. As if he didn’t have the chance to do any of that in his 18 years in charge of the organisation. His ludicrous self-delusion (he seriously believes he is a contender for the Nobel Prize) does not alter the fact it is the body as a whole that needs fumigating, not just its head.

Nobody should be diverted over the next nine months of politicking about whether it is Platini or Maradona who takes over from the gnome of Zurich. Personality is irrelevant here. What matters is that whoever takes charge immediately sets to work to disentangle the body that should be caring for the sport we all love from the web of corruption in which it is currently enmeshed. Because Lee Nelson is right: FIFA has become an organisation dedicated to cash.