Opinion: Emperor Blatter and his FIFA world

The old FIFA president will be the new president, let there be no doubt about that. The single challenger in next year's race for the FIFA presidency is the Frenchman Jerome Champagne. Previously, many people thought of him as Blatter's heir apparent. Now, he's the official challenger, but nothing more.

Until 2010, Champagne was Blatter's right hand man and most important advisor but then Blatter discarded him. From then on, Champagne had no chance to build a support network that compared to Blatter's.

The FIFA president has read his Machiavelli. He rules the world's football governing body like an emperor. Sometimes he builds alliances with others - but then he abandons the person when they become too powerful and dangerous. Blatter has the support of the African federations, and the South Americans and the Asians. Europe's football heavyweights can growl as much as they want; they are just toothless tigers.

Corruption allegations abound

That's how Blatter has survived 16 years of life at FIFA - and there have been one or two storms along the way. His first election was overshadowed with controversy. Then FIFA's marketing partner ISL was involved in bribing high-ranking functionaries. FIFA said the money was just "a commission" and they paid their way out of the legal process that started up as a result.

But there was no peace, even after that. The awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively also didn't go exactly by the letter of the law - to put it conservatively. There's a sense of expectation ahead of the final report from FIFA investigator Michael Garcia about that process - that is, of course, if the report is ever made public. Unlikely.

Lots to share

In any normal company, Blatter would have been forced to quit a long time ago. But FIFA is not that sort of an organization. Blatter has achieved a special world of his own: insular but very successful.

The World Cup in Brazil earned FIFA 1.6 billion euros ($2.03 billion). That's not bad for a simple sports association which, according to Swiss law, is allowed to do business transactions, in order to achieve its sporting goals. There's plenty to hand out after that sort of success of course and there are more than enough people who are holding their hand out for assistance.

So, Blatter can kick back and relax on his throne and just have a little chuckle about all his critics.