Africa

Depending on where you were in Africa, the news that Blatter was stepping down hit us between 5pm and 8pm on Tuesday night. This was a prime time slot and so it had maximum coverage.

The reaction across the continent was mixed, as it tends to be with football politics. Make no mistake, though, all around Africa FA bosses were saying the same thing: Blatter’s departure is a machination of western governments.

Africa is (or was) Blatter’s stronghold; all 54 nations gave the Swiss their vote in last Friday’s election. And as soon as the 79-year old was re-elected, he was surrounded by African delegates, who high-fived him and slapped him on the back. On Tuesday night the Zambia FA president, Kalusha Bwalya, called it “a sad day for football” but described Blatter’s decision as an “honourable gesture”.

The tone was slightly different in South Africa, where Joe Crann, a Johannesburg-based journalist, said: “People in South Africa are happy change is coming, but are definitely worried that whoever replaces Blatter won’t serve Africa and other smaller [football] continents the way he did.”

However, not everyone was so charitable. Vincent Sowah Odotei, who has twice lost out in attempts to become the head of Ghana’s FA, believes it is good news that Blatter is going. “How many years has Sepp had to institute the profound structural reforms he is now touting? He’s been in charge for 17 years and done precious little about the rot around him.”

The president of the Ghanaian FA, Kwesi Nyantakyi, who is widely thought to be among the favourites to succeed the head of African football, Issa Hayatou, when he leaves his post, could not get away from the fact that this was something instigated by the west. “Last week’s arrests were intended to create a certain effect,” he told Metro TV in Ghana. “[The US] wanted to highlight Fifa as a corrupt institution [and] Fifa officials, including all of us, as corrupt people and to get the world’s attention. And they succeeded.”

So now that Blatter has announced that he is stepping down, will his huge support with Africa wane? Well, it depends on what happens now, according to the Nigeria FA president, Amaju Pinnick: “Mr Blatter has neither been indicted nor arrested. Should he be indicted or arrested, he will immediately lose our support.”

But as ever, there was humour, too. South Africa’s colourful sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, tweeted: “Whatever happens to Sepp Blatter, I’m available to be the next Fifa president.”

Gary Al-Smith

South America

The former Brazil international Romario has been delighted with the developments of the last week. Photograph: Geraldo Magela/AFP/Getty Images

Sepp Blatter’s exit is a global story with a local slant almost everywhere in the world. Whereas the European media are portraying an institution where the power has been held in place by votes from the small nations of the developing world, in South America this is becoming the unravelling of power structures that have been in place for decades. Nowhere more so than in Brazil and Argentina, two countries who played crucial roles in the creation of Fifa as we know it – the actual ideologies and creators of the structure that appears to be tumbling.

The press in both countries is also major players in this demonic yet divine game we call football; rights holders, rights distributors, and vehicles for the message of that other protagonist in this thriller-cum-telenovela: the sponsors.

In Argentina, where Julio Grondona (the former finance chief whom Fifa claims authorised a $10m donation from South Africa to Jack Warner) died last August, the issues of succession and where the country might stand in world football have been prevalent throughout the year. A handful of businessmen who brokered TV rights and merchandising for World Cups and who have acted as partners not just with local media conglomerates but also with the government (which a few years ago decided to take an active role in televising football on terrestrial TV) have been named as wanted by the FBI. This is a local rift where accusations and counter-accusations are dished out according to the political allegiances of the various media.

In Brazil, home of the true Godfather of the entire “family”, João Havelange, resignations and scrutiny of the higher echelons of the football industry have been at the forefront of the news since before last year’s World Cup, with Havelange’s son-in-law Ricardo Teixeira forced down from his throne over corruption scandals some time ago. Again, depending on the media outlet one picks, different angles can be highlighted, with some great investigative journalism breaking though. Luiz Azenha, author of the best-selling book “The dirty side of Football” has been enjoying increased air-time to explain in detail some of the mechanisms whereby the rights contracts in Brazil have been allocated and brokered by various companies and sponsors over the years.

Speaking from Rio, Octavio Couto e Silva, who has followed events closely, commented: “We are used to scandals and resignations – it happens here often among politicians and it had already happened in the CBF with Ricardo Teixeira and José Maria Marin. What people did say when Marin came under scrutiny [from the US] again last week, is that had it been up to the justice system here [in Brazil] nothing would have happened.”

The former Brazil international Romário, who was instrumental in opposing Teixeira’s reign, is among those hailing Blatter’s resignation as “the beginning of a new era” and “the best news for football”.

With Venezuela, Paraguay and Uruguay among the nations whose officials make it on to Interpol’s now notorious Red List, the sense that the US has taken on the role of policing world football is unshakeable. For and against, one can find articulate voices supporting both viewpoints.

Marcela Mora y Araujo

North America

Blatter’s resignation has received unprecedented play in a region that has traditionally resisted soccer with a peculiar defiance. The story led Wednesday’s nightly newscasts, and the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post ran it on the front page above the fold in Thursday’s editions.

“The announcement today by President Blatter represents an exceptional and immediate opportunity for positive change within Fifa,” read a boilerplate statement from Sunil Gulati, the president of US Soccer. The reaction among the commentariat was far more pointed.

Sports Illustrated’s Brian Straus half-jokingly nominated US attorney general Loretta Lynch, whose federal corruption probe of Fifa effectively prompted Blatter’s abdication, as the next Ballon d’Or winner. Ian Darke said on SportsCenter, which breathlessly covered the developments live as they unfolded: “I guess we could say for the moment, hallelujah.”

Of particular note is the work of John Oliver, the comedian and host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight who has done a more effective job of shining a light on Fifa’s misdeeds than most mainstream journalists through a series of blistering long-form commentaries that have gone viral.

He revisited the issue in Sunday’s episode, vowing to drink a Bud Light Lime – which he described as tasting “like a puddle beneath a Long John Silver’s dumpster” – if Fifa sponsors forced Blatter to resign. “And it would taste like fucking champagne!” he insisted. As of Wednesday, Oliver’s post of a bucket of Bud Light Lime in a champagne bucket had received more than 20,000 retweets.

Bryan Graham

Central America

The story was plastered across the front page of Nicaragua’s La Prensa and Panama’s La Estrella de Panamá, while making headlines elsewhere in Central America.

Costa Rica is still coming to terms with the arrest of the head of the country’s Football Federation, Eduardo Li, in Zurich last week but the surprise World Cup quarter-finalists from last year will feel justified as one of three countries to abstain from Friday’s re-election of Blatter. Jorge Hidalgo, the interim president of the national football federation, said he expected the resignation but not so quickly after Friday’s vote. As for his thoughts on Blatter’s successor, Hidalgo said simply in a press conference that Fifa’s next president must be “valiente” (brave).



The Costa Rican president, Luis Guillermo Solís, who gained international renown for his high-profile celebrations during the tiny nation’s run to the last eight, applauded the resignation, adding that Blatter’s remaining as president would have “darkened even more the situation of Fifa and thrown a veil of opacity on its activities and the handling of its resources.”

Rafael Callejas, president of Honduras’s football federation, was more complimentary of Blatter, saying the Swiss did “unprecedented work as president of Fifa” and “saluted him personally” – but even he acknowledged the pressing need for change on top.

The federations in other countries were less forthright. The prominent El Salvador football journalist Mario Ernesto Posada said Fesfut’s president, Don Jorge Rafo, had “disappeared” in the wake of Blatter’s resignation. Posada demanded the official position of the national federation in an acerbic La Prensa op-ed. “Talk to Hugo Carrillo,” Rafo had said in declining comment on the matter. “I want to see the [Copa América] game against Chile.”

Bryan Graham

Russia

The sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, a member of the Fifa executive committee, called Blatter’s surprise resignation a “courageous decision with love for Fifa”. He suggested it had been made “under pressure” due to the corruption investigations and called for a replacement to protect Fifa. “Under this pressure, with this approach, changes would have come to nothing,” Mutko said. “Now it’s important to offer the football world a single leader who will gain universal support and defend Fifa from attacks.”

Mutko added on Russian television that there “was no threat” to Russia hosting World Cup 2018 and the Russia 2018 local organising committee released a statement saying: “We appreciate the enormous contribution that President Blatter has made to the development of football.”

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that the situation around Blatter’s resignation was “not simple” but declined to comment further. Last week president Vladimir Putin called the arrest of Fifa officials “another blatant attempt by the United States to extend its jurisdiction to other states”, arguing that Washington intended to prevent Blatter’s re-election.

“What you can’t deny is the Americans’ consistency,” the influential television and radio host Vladimir Soloviev wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night. “They forced Blatter out. Forced him out. The old man has resigned. The World Cup 2018 in Russia is under threat.” MP Alexander Sidyakin even suggested on Twitter that Blatter could come and work for the Russian Football Union in the run-up to the 2018 World Cup here.

In recent days Russian officials and pundits have loudly supported Blatter and denounced calls for the 2018 World Cup to be cancelled or boycotted. Igor Ananskikh, head of the parliament’s sports committee, said on Monday that calls by British officials to take away the competition were a case of “those who didn’t get the chance to host this World Cup being sore losers”.

Asked about the possibility of cancellation or boycott, the Russian Football Union spokesman Yevgeny Dzichkovsky told the Guardian that football and politics should be kept separate, adding that the Sochi Winter Olympics had shown Russia was able to conduct such international competitions at a “high level”. “Why deny everyone a World Cup in a country that’s ready to hold it?” he said.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, president Petro Poroshenko, whose forces continue to clash with Russia-backed separatists in the east despite a ceasefire, said on Facebook that Blatter’s resignation “gives hope” that “certain corruption-motivated decisions” by Fifa will be cancelled. He has previously called for other countries to boycott the World Cup in Russia.

Alec Luhn

Asia

Japan’s Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, left, in action against Belgium at the 2002 World Cup. Japan co-hosted the tournament, which help cement its relationship with Sepp Blatter. Photograph: Laurent Rebours/AP

The continent woke up to the big news on Wednesday morning and Australia got the metaphors in early. “Blatter’s departure leaves football’s reformers unmarked inside the six yard box with the goalkeeper nowhere to be seen,” wrote Michael Lynch in the Sydney Morning Herald .

But the language in Australia was not echoed throughout the Asian Football Confederation, much of which does not share the outrage over Fifa seen in some western media. A clear majority voted for Blatter against a candidate from their own backyard, an appreciation not just of the money that has flowed east from Switzerland but the sense that in Blatter’s tenure, Fifa was no longer the arrogant Euro-centric club that kept Asia on the outside looking in.

China kept fairly quiet, though official news outlets declared that the real change must come to the system, not the man at the top, with some critical of the over-commercialisation of the game. South Korea, a nation that had an uneasy relationship with Blatter in recent years, called the race to replace him as something that will put Game of Thrones to shame – more so now, as the former Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon said in Seoul that he would seriously consider running for the top job.

Indonesia talked about how the news may affect the suspension Fifa handed out last weekend and there was sympathy in India, where Blatter was seen as helping deliver the 2017 Under-17 World Cup.

Much attention will be on the Middle East however and not just on Qatar and 2022. As well as Prince Ali of Jordan – where the reaction to Blatter’s exit was enthusiastic – Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah of Kuwait, tipped as a possible successor to Blatter, may step forward carrying a good deal of Asian and African support. One Kuwaiti journalist told the Guardian:“They [the UK media] think that a defeat for Blatter is a big victory . They could be in for a shock.”

In Japan, and indicative of the country’s cultural aloofness and limited inclination toward genuine investigative journalism, public reaction from officials and commentators has rarely extended beyond “surprise” or “shock” at events unfolding in Zurich. Unlike the eloquent Gary Lineker on the BBC, former professionals on Japanese TV have stopped short of offering direct opinion “without knowing much of what is happening”.

From the wider population, the late-night news of Blatter’s resignation has generally been well received, even celebrated. That said, some on Twitter have questioned why the British press feel the need to kick up such a fuss. Are they trying to wrest back control of “their” sport?

On Wednesday morning the JFA vice-president and Fifa ExCo member Kozo Tashima said: “In Asia, Blatter always looked favourably on Japan. He gave us the opportunity to host many different championships, including the World Cup and Club World Cup. We had an undeniably close relationship with him.

“The Asian confederation had decided to support Blatter together, and no charges had been brought against Blatter himself. We could not change our decision based on rumour alone.”

John Duerden and Ben Mabley

Southern Europe

“Blatter has thrown in the towel because of politics, police and money … the powerful fist of the FBI sent him to the canvas.” That was the judgment of the Spain’s sports daily AS, which insisted that “geopolitical reasons are behind this, not just the crimes committed”. While the reaction in Spain has largely been one of surprise, AS’s insistence that he is the victim of “Anglo-Saxon” interests underlines a lingering mistrust of the intentions of the US and, by extension, the UK. AS’s editor noted in one column: “is it [the case] really such a big deal?” which did not exactly imply that they were taking corruption seriously.

Some have been left feeling uncomfortable by the fact that Spain’s federation is one of only three to have voted in Blatter’s favour, but that has not been the focus of much of the reporting. The head of the Spanish Football Federation, Ángel María Villar Llona, is in the midst of a war of his own with Spain’s football league and the government, a war which is essentially a power struggle for control of the game here:. That context is important, helping to draw the fault-lines in the game and the media that cover it. Villar, a vice-president at Fifa, and president of the federation since 1988, has not been indicted.

In Italy there was little sadness about bidding farewell to a man variously defined by media outlets as “the great dictator”, “and old dinosaur” and “the Darth Vader of Zurich”. The Italian Football Federation president, Carlo Tavecchio, (no stranger to controversy himself, of course) was quick to remind us that he had voted for Prince Ali in Friday’s presidential elections. Even so, reactions have not been as jubilant as in England. The focus has been as much on the bigger picture – how much more is yet to emerge from corruption investigations? How will a nascent power struggle between the USA and Russia play out? – as on one individual standing down.

Sid Lowe and Paolo Bandini

Northern Europe

Uefa’s president, Michel Platini, left, here with Sepp Blatter and Frank Beckenbauer in 2007, has the backing of the French football federation to take over as head of Fifa. Photograph: Laurent Gillieron/EPA

In England the Football Association chairman, Greg Dyke, has certainly not held back since Blatter’s resignation announcement. His views have arguably been the most forthright across the world, declaring it a “brilliant day” for football.

Dyke drew criticism from Qatar following assertions that the 2022 World Cup hosts “wouldn’t sleep well” following Blatter’s announcement. The FA chairman was in boisterous mood, saying: “It is a good afternoon. I think it’s brilliant for world football. Clearly there was a smoking gun of some sort. This is nothing to do with Mr Blatter being honourable. If I was the Qatari organisers I wouldn’t sleep very well tonight.”

The newspapers in England certainly did not hold back with the front page of the Daily Telegraph sport section carrying the headline: “Good riddance.”

Dyke’s positivity has, in the main, been shared by many across northern Europe, although not to the same extent. Senior figures in Germany and the Netherlands backed Blatter’s decision, as did the Uefa president and Frenchman, Michel Platini. However, France did not support Platini’s directive for a bloc vote for Prince Ali in last week’s Fifa elections, instead voting for Blatter.

The president of the French Football Federation, Noël Le Graët, professed on Wednesday to being “surprised” by Blatter’s resignation but insisted he had no regrets about voting for the Swiss during last week’s presidential election.

“I don’t regret [voting for Blatter], I’ve always assumed my responsibilities,” said Le Graët, who has been heavily criticised in France for backing Blatter despite Platini asking European associations to back Prince Ali. “I think Blatter led Fifa without cheating and I still think that,” continued the 73-year-old. “There is a lot of mud-slinging.”

Le Graët had indicated before Friday’s vote that he would back Blatter, pointing to his federation’s “good relationship” with the Swiss and the fact that France was awarded the hosting rights for the 2019 Women’s World Cup. On Wednesday he elaborated on his thinking. “There were two candidates: Prince Ali and Sepp Blatter; I preferred Blatter,” he told RMC. “I didn’t think Prince Ali had enough experience. At the time I voted, Fifa was not corrupt up to the top. There were certainly lapses at global level, but to imagine that Fifa, from its headquarters, could arrange cheating, I didn’t believe that last week.”

Despite going against Platini’s advice last week, Le Graët says his compatriot is the ideal person to succeed Blatter. “I have been saying for a while that Michel is the best candidate,” said. “He has been running Uefa remarkably well for several years. He was the only one capable of winning against Blatter.”

Renhard Rauball, the president of Germany’s Bundesliga, said: “This is a good day for world football. Sepp Blatter has done Fifa a great service by resigning. All who seriously advocate a reform of Fifa must now contribute constructive proposals for the unity of football.” The Dutch FA chairman, Michael van Praag, tweeted: “I wanted change for the Fifa and this may be a very big step in the right direction. Let’s truly accomplish #footballforeveryone.”

James Riach and Paul Doyle

• This article was amended on 4 June to correct a sentence that stated that Luis Guillermo Solís is the president of the Costa Rican Football Federation. He is the president of the country.







