Blood On Dancefloor As Sepp Faces European Critics
Updated: 4:00am UK, Wednesday 11 June 2014
By Paul Kelso, Sports Correspondent, Rio de Janeiro
When Sepp Blatter shimmied onto stage at the Fifa Congress alongside Brazilian model Fernanda Lima he did not look much like a man under pressure.
As he jigged about like a man at his granddaughter's wedding, Blatter was in his element, playing to type at the opening ceremony of an event he has long choreographed to his own ends.
You certainly would not have guessed this was a man who started the day facing an open challenge to his leadership from inside the "football family" of which he imagines himself patriarch.
Blatter is well used to criticism from beyond the gates. This is a man, after all, who has not been able to risk a speech at a World Cup finals since he was booed at the 2002 Japan-South Korea World Cup.
But he is certainly not used to being criticised so openly and directly on his own turf as he was on Tuesday.
FA chairman Greg Dyke is new to "Fifaland" and had little to lose, and much to gain domestically, from taking Blatter on. But his message was unarguable.
The allegations against Qatar are not the result of a conspiracy, or racism. Rather they are the product of a competitive, engaged media worrying away at a questionable decision made by a demonstrably flawed organisation.
To suggest otherwise is to admit, as many within Uefa believe, that Blatter does not really believe in cleaning up Fifa or the work of US attorney Michael Garcia, commissioned to investigate the Qatar allegations.
Dyke's Dutch counterpart Michael Van Praag, meanwhile, said plainly what many have long believed; Fifa cannot be credibly reformed with Blatter at the helm because the scandals of the last decade occurred on his watch.
And yet Fifa being Fifa, there is always a political dance going on, and so it was here.
Uefa's opposition at least makes them look like they speak for the interests of players, clubs and the fans they ultimately represent.
But Dyke and Van Praag, no matter how well-intentioned, were really doing someone else's dirty work. Michel Platini, Uefa President, one-time advisor to Blatter and for a while his most credible opponent, was silent. Uefa wants change - and many support them - but their leader kept his head down.
Perhaps it is because he is compromised over Qatar having openly voted for them. Or perhaps he believes that no matter how uncomfortable Uefa made one afternoon for Blatter, their opposition is unlikely to prevent him winning another term as president.
That is the reality of Blatter's grip over Fifa. He commands a majority of the 209 member nations, and his announcement this week of increased bonuses from World Cup profits to all of them will ensure he keeps it.
Uefa has six months to change the music by finding a candidate capable of taking him on and winning. If they don't, Blatter will waltz on to a fifth term.
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