Agency :Sepp Blatter was elected to his fifth term as president of FIFA on Friday. It came just days after 14 former or current executives and associates were indicted by the U.S. Justice Department in sweeping charges of racketeering stemming from an alleged widespread culture of bribery and kickbacks.In the end though, it hardly mattered. After blocking Blatter from getting a two-thirds majority on the first vote, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan – needing to switch some 31 votes his way – withdrew from the race before the conclussion of the second majority vote. And with that, Blatter is back for four more years.If the images of FIFA execs getting hauled out of swanky Zurich hotels weren’t going to do it, almost nothing short of Blatter himself getting legally rolled up on will.This was a testament to the power the 79-year-old Blatter has amassed over four decades with FIFA, including the last 17 as president, mainly in gaining unshakable support in many small, often poor nations.It was also something straight out of America’s big-city mayoral party machines – New York’s Tammany Hall and James Michael Curley’s Boston stretching through Richard J. Daley’s Chicago and even Marion Barry’s Washington. Everything was based on caring for ward bosses, so when it mattered they’d deliver the votes.If you grease the skids and take care of the corners then no amount of cries of scandal from the wealthy elite, howls from the media and complaints – or even convictions – of illegal behavior can unseat you. It can actually strengthen everyone’s resolve.FIFA has 209 federations and each has an equal vote, a system in which Comoros counts as much as China.Throughout his tenure the Swiss-born Blatter has curried favor with many of the poorer nations (more than half the population of Comoros, for instance, live on less than $1.25 per day). Some of it has been above the board and well-intended, say using FIFA’s vast resources to fund much-needed grassroots efforts. Even if it was just hundreds of thousands of dollars, it represented a fortune in some places, not to mention a clear show of respect.
