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Blatter takes off his tie – reporters swoon
Jaime, Enrique and Blatter junior have sold 148,000 hospitality tickets but have a massive 194,000 left on the shelf. Overall, how many tickets are unsold and will likely have to be given away? No figure can be believed because there’s sacks of them stuck with the Elephants’ agents and listed as ‘sold’ – but aren’t. The truth is probably in excess of 800,000. The most devastating number is that of the 660,000 allocated to diehard fans of the 32 finalists, only 185,000 have been snapped up.
It’s hard to see all the marquees in those magnificent ‘Hospitality Villages’ alongside the stadiums illustrated in the MATCH brochure ever being built. Legions of suppliers, chefs and waitresses will be sent away because Blatter’s cronies thought they could bleed the fans during a global economic recession.
When the Bros set up their 2010 FIFA-approved ticket business travel agents paid $30,000 to enter the ring and guarantee to pay more for a range of games. The result: a daily stream of emails spinning around the planet sent by agents trying to unload unwanted tickets on each other.
Now the Bros, desperate to empty their warehouses of inventory, have created their own parallel, black market. Anyone, you, me, the bloke over there in the corner of the bar, could cough up $30,000, become a ‘sponsor’ of a national association and buy tickets with a face value of nearly $80,000.
‘It’s a huge dump’
The smart guys jumped in, got their tickets, chucked away Honduras v Chile at Mbombela stadium (cost £90 million, will stage four forgettable Round One games over 11 days and then itself be forgotten) and similar games and packaged the better tickets with flights and rooms.
Soon hotels may pay visitors to take rooms. A German travel agent says the Bros and Blatter jnr and their MATCH company are quietly offering 4-star hotels for 1-star prices. ‘It’s a huge dump,’ they told me. This agent and their rivals are themselves now big in the dumping business, jettisoning thousands of reserved hotel nights and hundreds of flights.
This hasn’t stopped FIFA’s expensive lawyers chasing South Africans with a sense of humour. The Kulula no-frills airline produced an ad claiming to be ‘The Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What.’
Wham! In roared FIFA’s thought police, screaming sponsors were being ambushed and threatening vast financial penalties for illustrating the ad with soccer balls, a player, a Cape Town stadium, the national flag and the dread words ‘South Africa.’
Days later the airline posted a new ad, headlined, ‘Not next year, not last year, but somewhere in between.’ The player had lost his balls and was barefoot, the stadium was unidentifiable.
Why Blatter’s anger? MATCH is charging clients a stupendous $755 for return flights across the country to games. Kulula, charging between $140 and $196, had to be suppressed.
Another number being suppressed is how much president Blatter trousers every year. FIFA have just produced its annual report and, as is their custom, refuse to follow best international practice and reveal individual remuneration of those at the top of the organisation.
They won’t disclose expenses and per diems claimed by the 24-member executive committee but be sure they are huge and often unjustified. The only figure worth knowing is that after eight years on the ruling body members get a pension. $12 million was put aside last year.
Spooks, ex-spooks, criminals and charlatans
A week ago Blatter revealed how he intends to prevent bribery in the contests to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022. His brilliant idea has amused the brigade of reporters, consultants, strategists, launderers, spooks, ex-spooks, criminals and charlatans who discuss little else but which of the two dozen voters will pocket bribes, who will pay them and the routes the money will take. The President’s answer? His ethics committee will send a strict letter to the bidders! Tell them they mustn’t do it!
If anybody defies him they risk . . . not very much. FIFA’s toothless ethics enforcers who have no ability to monitor bidders, no police and no investigative powers is the guarantee of fat city and offshore bank accounts.
The backdrop to the contest to host the tournament is Sepp Blatter’s manoeuvers to defeat the challenge to his presidency expected next year from Asian football leaders. Last week, even as the crisis of tickets and facilities in South Africa deepened, he had more important things to do. Blatter turned up in Saudi – whose ‘generosity’ in football politics is legendary – announcing, ‘I know very well that the best way to win Arab support for my candidature is to come to Saudi Arabia.’