The Big Sponsors need to wake up to Football’s ‘Fifa Spring’

Watching Sepp Blatter’s press conference I was constantly reminded of the video appearances of various Arab dictators on the cusp of losing their power. Defiance, anger, finger jabbing.

A coded warning for Governments not to interfere. There was even a spot of Callaghan thrown in for good measure: “Crisis? what Crisis?”.

This is not the place to go into the detail of the allegations and counter-allegations.

However, it is remarkable that Fifa’s General Secretary Jerome Valcke sent an email to the fifa Vice-president suggesting Qatar “bought the WC” (World Cup), even if Qatar deny any wrongdoing and Mr Valcke says he meant “bought” in a wider sense (ie used its financial lobbying power, and didn’t “purchase votes”).

From the outside it is abundantly clear that the Fifa fiefdom is in need of its own Arab spring.

Right now is surely the point of maximum pressure, before Wednesday’s vote/coronation of Blatter as Fifa President.

The world’s football associations and confederations could make tomorrow a rather dramatic day, if they decide to go for the jugular.

But there is another consituency that needs to wake up. Big Business. Representatives from Coca Cola and Adidas today expressed their concerns at developments in Zurich.

If they can’t see how fed up the average football fan is with the opaqueness, bizarre football diplomacy, and allegations of far far worse, then their brands might end up tarnished by association.

Having seen on Saturday what Barcelona can do on the pitch, and understanding their fan-centric business model/ nurturing of local youth football off the pitch, I struggle to understand why these sorts of people aren’t running world football rather than the professional footballing bureaucracy.