Eight year ban eh, dont suppose they're bothered I guess they'll need 8 years to count all the dosh they've acquired from the game. Not much of a punishment in my opinion.
I think the very name FIFA is so disreputable I think the whole organisation should be scrapped and a new governing organisation set up from scratch. Even now there will be countries hosting the World Cup through sleeze and corruption, and non of the guilty will receive any real punishment or have ill gotten gains sequestrated. Its no wonder England has not been considered these last 50 years
Tip of the iceberg for Blatter and perhaps Platini as well. The FIFA ethics committee is pretty toothless compared to the FBI and European law enforcement agencies. I heard Blatter's press conference while I was driving this morning. He is either deluded or as brazen as they come, or both. He can't see why paying millions to Platini for 'consultancy advice' - which is conveniently vague - without creating a written record of it and putting it through accounts systems in the usual way is an ethics matter. The concepts of good governance and transparency are alien to him. I played golf on Saturday and because a group of us play for a couple of quid apiece you don't mark your own card. That's not because anyone is a cheat - it is so that you are saved from yourself if you were to make a mistake and appear to be a cheat. It is fundamental, simple transparency. He was dealing with millions of pounds and can't see why the same rules apply. When someone dealing with millions doesn't use those basic principles of governance, and when you look at everything else that has gone on in that organisation, you smell a big fat rat. Dead man walking.
I saw him give his brief and he was unshaven with a plaster under his right eye. He went off at tangents on more than one occasion and made some quite frankly bizarre statements. I fear that he is suffering form some kind of psychotic episode and he should give this up now for the sake of his health - he looks a broken man.
He has always been very eccentric and probable closer towards what one might call a socio-path. It explains how he has been so successful and innovative while being so very corrupt and brutal. It usually takes a very long time to spot these people (if at all) as they are very protected usually by cir***stances they connive and conspire and manipulate is such clever and intricate ways, as well as being strangely charming with it.
A psychotic or psuedo -psychotic episode is very common for such people; indeed, most of their life is borderline delusional. The real issue for such people is when the game is up (temporarily) and the fantasy is so 'assaulted' by reality that the 'narcissistic wound' is unbearable and they shatter.
However, most of the time they are able to reassemble and return to the delusion sufficiently at least to convince themselves of their innocence and superiority while denigrating everyone else. Thats what makes Linkers tweet so very poignant.