Graham Kelly: Blatter's smoke-and-mirrors act cannot mask unease

In a leader column on 29 May last year, this newspaper argued that the expected re-election of the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, that day at the congress in Seoul would represent a significant own goal by the game's world governing body.

The former Swiss Army officer had been forced to withstand a battery of corruption allegations that had split the Fifa executive committee before facing a critical extraordinary session of delegates at which he exercised his chairman's duties in a highly selective manner to allow few opponents the floor.

When Blatter romped home, defeating his Cameroonian challenger, Issa Hayatou, by 139 votes to 56, he more than doubled his winning margin of 1998 over Lennart Johansson, the president of Uefa, the European game's ruling body. It seemed that the Fifa member associations who voted cared little for appearances; rather, their representatives were more concerned to keep the rewards flowing in, because the Blatter years were proving to be bountiful.

Hayatou is now reconciled with the high command, as is the Fifa custom, though in his own African Football Confederation he faces challenges next year to his leadership. In Zurich last week, Fifa held its first media conference on financial matters. Blatter released figures for 1999-2002 which showed that Fifa was £55m in the black, after a deficit of £120m had earlier been forecast following the collapse of its marketing partners ISL and the Kirch Group.

"Fifa is now financially more stable than ever," Blatter announced proudly. But the accounts included loans of £329m "securitised" (the football financier's favourite term) against income expected from World Cup 2006. He subtly went on to hold out the prospect of financial assistance from Fifa reserves, currently £106m, for the African organisers of World Cup 2010. This, shortly after an interview with the Swiss newspaper, Sonntag Zeitung, in which he hinted that he might, contrary to earlier statements, be prepared to stand for a third term of office at the age of 70 in 2006.

Blatter refers dismissively to the University of Brighton academics, John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson, as " the English professors", but anyone requiring an acute insight into the Byzantine and awesome world that has been the Fifa club of limousines and executive jets since the former president João Havelange's charismatic powers began to wane a decade ago should buy their recently published book 'Badfellas'. It contains chapter and considerable verse on the pre-election report of the general secretary Blatter sacked, Michel Zen-Ruffinen.

Blatter has always vigorously denied corruption – though he has admitted to a certain carelessness and excessive generosity to unfortunates down on their luck. Whether such descriptions could be ascribed, however, to the more questionable practices of advancing irregular favours to key allies, which led the former Football Association chief executive, Adam Crozier, to denounce Blatter from the podium at the extraordinary congress in Seoul, is doubtful.

Would they apply to the executive committee members themselves, for example? One of Blatter's first actions on becoming president in 1998 was to propose that, on top of their already generous expenses, committee members should receive an annual salary of $50,000 (£32,000). Did any of the 11 members who supported Zen-Ruffinen's complaint about irregularities object to Blatter's proposal, or could they not believe their luck?

A lot can happen before 2006. Nobody has much stomach for yet another vicious and debilitating fight just now. But the stakes are truly enormous. In 2004, when Fifa celebrates its centenary, the statutes will be reviewed. Who knows what deals will be brokered in order to obtain or keep power and wealth?

The four British associations have treasured the special status that Sir Stanley Rous negotiated on their return to the fold in 1946. Their representative, Scotland's David Will, will need all his 14 years' experience to save the automatic British seat from abolition.

Blatter, meanwhile, will be watching the progress of the Fifa GOAL development programme. By 2006, 140 to 150 projects will have come on stream worldwide, in over two-thirds of the Fifa member associations.

A two-thirds vote would secure the presidency, either for him, or his nominated successor. Michel Platini, his running mate four years ago, is now in the box seat on the executive committees of both Fifa and Uefa. But Uefa has been outflanked twice, three times if you include the source of its original frustration in 1994, when Havelange returned to the congress hall in Chicago with copious tears of gratitude pouring down his cheeks and proceeded three weeks later to pack the committees with his cronies.

Uefa may yet be able to unite sufficient moneyed interests behind Franz Beckenbauer, who, interestingly, supported Blatter last year. Old presidents do not easily fade away, though. They simply become honorary. But do they become honourable?

grahamkelly@btinternet.com