FIFA corruption arrests: Sepp Blatter resigns as president after leading officials indicted

American soccer executive Chuck Blazer has died at the age of 72. His lawyers announced his death on Wednesday night. Blazer was a pioneer in the American soccer business, but he was most famous for his corruption and for cooperating with the FBI’s investigation into corruption in soccer in order to avoid jail time.

Blazer’s cause of death was announced as rectal cancer. Blazer also said that he had diabetes and coronary artery disease in 2013. He was hospitalized regularly after he resigned from FIFA in that year.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has repeatedly stated that FIFA’s corruption crisis is over and that soccer’s governing body is moving in a new, ethical direction. It’s a little harder to trust him after some key members of the ethics committee were booted.

In a statement, German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert and Swiss prosecutor Cornel Borbely said that their “impending removal at the FIFA Congress will greatly set back the work of the ethics commission and means the de facto end of FIFA’s reform efforts.” They added, “this will inevitably lead to a renewed loss of trust and further hurt the already tarnished image of FIFA.”

Gianni Infantino has been elected as the new FIFA president. The Swiss-born administrator had been UEFA general secretary since 2009, though will now take up the most senior position in world football’s governing body. He won Friday’s election in which delegates from all 209 of FIFA’s member states participated, at an “extraordinary congress” called after the resignation of his disgraced predecessor Sepp Blatter.

The news does not come as a great surprise, with Infantino having been one of the two front runners before the election. The other was Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, whose bid for the presidency was hit by a string of allegations including complicity in human rights abuses and appropriation of development project funds.

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini won’t be partaking in any soccer-related activities for a while, but FIFA says they can get back to work a bit sooner than expected. On Wednesday, the FIFA appeals committee reduced their bans from eight years to six.

Here’s FIFA’s statement on the decision. Emphasis on the most ridiculous part of this passage is ours.

We’ve been waiting for months to know what the fate of suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter and suspended UEFA president Michel Platini would be. The pair had been banned for 90 days by FIFA’s ethics committee after being charged in involvement with “disloyal” payments made by FIFA to Platini in 2011, and now that same committee has made their final ruling: both Blatter and Platini have been suspended for eight years.

The ban means that neither man can be involved in any official, FIFA-sanctioned football organizations or events for the next eight years. It effectively ends the sporting careers of both men -- Blatter, 79, had already resigned from his presidency effective as of when the governing body of world football can hold a special election to replace him. Platini, 60, had intended on campaigning to replace him, but his candidacy fell apart when these charges were leveled against him.

Two FIFA Executive Committee members got arrested in Switzerland on Thursday morning as part of a superseding indictment from the United States Department of Justice, on top of the one originally handed down in May. This one looks like it might even be a bigger deal than the first one.

The biggest fish in the original FIFA indictment was Jeffrey Webb, then the CONCACAF president. The other big names were people who had already stepped down from their leadership positions in global soccer or executives at sports marketing companies. This time around, eight active executives and eight other very recent ones have been indicted, including three FIFA Executive Committee members. As a part of this new indictment, another ExCo member has plead guilty, while members of four other FIFA committees were named.

Things have just gone from bad to worse in the scandals surrounding FIFA. Both Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini could see their current 90-day suspensions extended to a whopping five years, according to a report in Germany.

FIFA’s ethics committee already suspended both over the issue of significant and “disloyal” payments from Blatter to Platini in 2011 -- which the pair claim was from a “gentleman’s agreement” over work Platini did years before -- but also reserved the right to extend the term of their bans pending further investigation. Apparently, they’ve found something worth going for the throat over.

Despite months of controversy and scandal in the wake of many FIFA executives and significant figures in world football being arrested, President Sepp Blatter is still the man in charge of the world’s governing football organization. He’s preparing to relinquish his seat after special elections that are supposed to be held soon -- but if FIFA’s sponsors have their way, he won’t make it to those elections:

Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are two of the biggest names in their respective industries, and have the ability to put significant financial pressure on FIFA to have their demands answered. They are the first major sponsors to make such a request public, but they likely won’t be the last -- such demands often start as a trickle before becoming much more widespread.

Let’s say your employer forgets to pay you a large portion of your salary. Like, say, $2 million Swiss Francs (roughly equal in US Dollars) over a period of four years. How would you react to that? You’d be pretty pissed off, right?

UEFA president Michel Platini says it happened to him. Swiss authorities say Sepp Blatter was involved in a “disloyal payment” from FIFA to Platini in 2011, but the three-time Ballon d’Or winner has an alternative explanation. He says that payment was money owed to him from his old full-time job.

Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into Sepp Blatter and deals he made with Jack Warner and Michel Platini as FIFA president, but he’s not going anywhere. His lawyers issued a statement saying that he will not resign ahead of his scheduled departure date because he did “nothing illegal or improper.”

Blatter’s lawyers didn’t just say he’d done nothing wrong, but offered their side of the story amidst accusations that Blatter had been involved in an improper payment to Platini.

Sepp Blatter managed to avoid criminal charges in the United States Department of Justice’s initial FIFA sting, but he hasn’t gotten away from the FIFA scandal unscathed just yet. The Swiss Attorney General announced on Friday that they are beginning criminal proceedings against the current FIFA president.

The Swiss AG suspects Blatter of signing a contract with the Caribbean Football Union -- headed up by Jack Warner -- that he knew was unfavorable for FIFA. They claim that Blatter “violated his fiduciary duties and acted against the interest of FIFA.”

The war of words between John Oliver and disgraced former FIFA executive Jack Warner is not over, not even close. After Oliver bought airtime in Trinidad and Tobago to beg Warner to help the investigation into his horrid transgressions by snitching on all his former colleagues (and terribly mimic a Trini accent), Warner responded with a video of his own, growling at the “American” “comedian fool” over some absurd dramatic music (and rightfully shaming Oliver for his horrible accent).

And so now it’s a video message arms race. Oliver found the same dramatic music with the most hilariously simple Google search AND added some fire and sparks and a thank you to Helen Mirren (who was already there as a guest and totally should have been included in this spectacle). Your move, Jack. Top that. (Or, like Oliver said, maybe just concentrate on not spending the rest of your life in prison because you are horrible.)

To the surprise of absolutely no one who has ever heard of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, reports emerged on Saturday that he was reconsidering his decision to step down. He’s still wildly popular among Asian and African FA heads -- hence his re-election -- and they’d much rather have him around than whoever is running for his seat.

But Blatter’s popularity is utterly irrelevant, as FIFA audit and compliance committee chairman Domenico Scala reminded everyone a day later. “For me, the reforms are the central topic,” said Scala. “That is why I think it is clearly indispensable to follow through with the initiated process of leadership change as it has been announced.”

On Tuesday, John Oliver purchased time on Trinidad and Tobago national television in order to beg former FIFA executive Jack Warner to snitch on FIFA. Now Warner is firing back with yet another television spot, backed by some truly heart-wrenching music.

The music REALLY swells about 70 seconds in and it’s glorious. Honestly, Warner makes some salient points here, especially about Oliver mocking Trinidad and Tobago’s culture, but someone needs to tell him that John Oliver isn’t American. He did recently chug a Bud Light Lime, though. I can see how that would be misleading.

Former FIFA executive Jack Warner, who sits at the center of the organization’s corruption investigation thanks to some ridiculous and truly grim allegations, has taken time to defend himself on television in Trinidad and Tobago, his home country/the country that might extradite him.

HBO host John Oliver has had so much fun with the absurdity of this FIFA corruption scandal, and he continued to bask in the absurdity of the whole thing by recently buying some TV6 time of his own in order to send a message to Warner. In between mocking Mike & Molly and doing a horrible Trini accent, Oliver pleaded with Warner to turn on everyone and let all the silliness into the open air:

Years ago, the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation claimed that former FIFA executive Jack Warner pocketed over $700,000 that was meant to be donated to a relief fund following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Now, the seemingly incorrigible Warner is at the center of the FIFA corruption scandal, and that missing money is part of the investigation.

BBC reports that United States prosecutors are investigating claims that money -- $750,000 in total -- donated by the Korean football association and FIFA for Haiti earthquake relief instead went into Warner’s own accounts for “personal use.”

John Oliver made a promise to happily consume all the products of FIFA sponsors if they pulled their support and got Sepp Blatter to resign. Blatter DID resign unexpectedly, though probably not as a result of sponsor pressure ... but “a promise is a promise.” TIME FOR BRANDS:

Horrible adidas sneakers worn, a baker’s dozen of horrible McDonald’s sandwiches haphazardly gnawed, Bud Light Lime a.k.a. “Jolly Green Giant’s ejaculate” gamely chugged -- that’s how you keep a promise ... and probably throw up while wearing a tailored suit.

If you go over to blattr.co.uk you can play the new game BLATTR, where you feed the giant head of Sepp Blatter things like money, coins, cash, rolls of bills, champagne and gold butts. The gold butts are probably important. Don’t try feeding him handcuffs, though. He’ll just spit those out.

Nice try, feds!

The court documents from the United States of America v. Charles Gordon Blazer were unsealed on Wednesday, allowing us to hear from Blazer himself. He plead guilty to multiple charges as part of a deal with the U.S. attorney and was forced to admit the following in court:

- Accepted a bribe in 1992 related to selecting the host nation for the 1998 World Cup

Sepp Blatter announced his resignation and this is the best you’ve got, print journalism?

Come on, Argentina. Pretty much every sport has a whistle in it, not just soccer.

Oh. Oh dear. We should stress, of course, that the indictment does not allege that Valcke knew the money was going to be used as a bribe, and that Valcke, unlike many others, is not identified as a co-conspirator. FIFA also says that this is standard procedure and that there’s nothing to see here.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter might remain unscathed from the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into corruption in soccer, but the authorities might work their way up the food chain shortly. According to the New York Times, U.S. officials believe that FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke was responsible for transferring a reported $10 million bribe from South Africa to the Caribbean Football Union, run by indicted executive Jack Warner.

However, it’s not clear that Valcke knew that the money was a bribe. The Times received a response from Valcke before running their story.

Jack Warner has some thoughts on the actions of the United States with regards to FIFA. He believes there is clearly quite the double standard at play, given that the US wants to host the World Cup this year but is still trying to attack soccer’s governing body.

Problem is the article he’s using to show that the US wants to host the World Cup this year is from The Onion and is blatant satire. Maybe these guys aren’t smart enough for organized corruption after all.

The latest domino has fallen in today’s wave of FIFA arrests and corruption allegations:

Warner formerly held the offices of FIFA vice president and CONCACAF president, but resigned from those offices in 2011 after facing corruption and bribery charges from FIFA’s ethics committee. Today, he was one of the officials indicted and arrested in Zürich, and is at the center of the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into FIFA. He didn’t seem terribly afraid of the charges earlier, but knowing that he’s not safe at home in Trinidad and Tobago has to change things somewhat.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has responded to the investigations launched on Wednesday by American and Swiss authorities that resulted in the arrests of numerous high-ranking officials. In a statement published on the website of football’s global governing body, Blatter unsurprisingly sought to put a positive spin on things:

Blatter has courted controversy throughout his tenure as FIFA president, though he has thus far emerged unscathed from the investigations. FIFA’s Director of Communications, Walter De Gregorio, described him on Wednesday morning as as “relaxed” about the events.