The Autumn of Football’s Patriarch
IS THE BLADE really being sharpened? Is there soon to be a vacancy at the People’s Palace? Patriarch fears so. His 35 years ducking and lots of diving include setting up his own global intelligence networks. He knows who is restless, who is whispering rebellion.
He also knows that nobody loves Patriarch. Not the fans, that’s for sure. They boo him at big games, forcing him to hide under the bleachers rather than hand over his trophy after the Final of the Germany tournament in 2006. The sponsors weren’t happy about that blemish on their spectacle. The fans buy their products and he was docked 10 points for the booing.
The Brands averted their eyes from the blatant corruption as long as the Notebooks did. But they became restless during the Manhattan process when they heard the evidence. Patriarch and his Grand Vizier brazenly lie to the Brand managers who pay for the fucking show. You can walk on water but not on Coca-Cola. The coming South African debacle – with the likelihood of empty seats for God’s sake! – will ease relegation to bootboy in the Visp Pensioners League.
Back in the mid-1990s when today’s Patriarch was yesterday’s Grand Vizier a sports marketing company with clients among the biggest brands met secretly in the Frankfurt airport Sheraton with the Industry Billionaire from the Far East. They were concerned about the millions in kickbacks that were about to flow from a deal they were excluded from. They were clean and offered more. They lost. Brand managers have long memories. You only get to screw them once. The Billionaire was out-manipulated that time. Not again.
DIRTY TRICKS ‘CONSULTANT’ FIRED
The Man from the Gulf has told his dirty tricks ‘consultant’ Peter Hargitay, previously fired by Blatter and the England FA, that he’s persona non grata in Qatar or Kuala Lumpa. Asia, with the whole-hearted involvement of the Eastern Billionaire, comes to the hustings with 46 votes.
They know it’s not yet Asia’s time and the only certain candidate to glue the game together is Europe’s charismatic leader – and he’s got another 53 votes. Only six short of the tipping point of 105.
The Man from the Gulf is long famous in Africa for his generosity and most if not all of their 54 votes will make it a landslide. How big the ticketing mess created by Patriarch’s friends and family turns out to be could have African delegates turning their backs on him at Oliver Tambo when his Gulfstream lands. Before the Opening Ceremony.
After that, it doesn’t really matter what anybody else thinks. Dig out the obit. Sound the klaxon on the presses. Who is backing a loser?
Flashpoint could be the Congress on the eve of the July 11 kickoff. Will the Europeans allow Patriarch to continue influencing the contest to host the Big Event in 2012 and 2018. He’s so tricky it might be best to tell him to take his money and manufacture his medical exit. And they might scrap the ludicrous plan to chose the 2022 host nation a dozen years ahead of time. The dazzle of doubling the bribes before the Mortician called them in was too much for some of the very old consiglieres.
LET THE CLEAN-UP BEGIN
The North American and Caribbean franchise, tightly controlled by the bubble-bearded Fatman, with his homes in Trump Tower, Paradise Beach in Nassau and the farm in Lenior, North Carolina, and his gold-encrusted partner in crime from Trinidad have been given freedom by Patriarch to misbehave as they wished. With Europe, Asia and Africa united, life bans on them and suspension of 35 subservient nations pending forensic audits could only be for the good of the game – there and everywhere.
Likewise, the Latin Americans can be warned that they’d better rid themselves of the Bribe taker listed in the Zug court, the Anti-Semite from the land of Maradona and the Dodgy Brazilian who makes the enter-at-your-peril favelas look safe yet has been given his own World Cup to plunder in 2014. A swift blood-letting, soon forgotten as the game begins to get respect again.