It was a joke, but he still had to leave.

Until last week, Walter De Gregorio was the media spokesman for FIFA. Then on Swiss television he made a joke about his employer: “The president of FIFA, the secretary general and the media spokesman are all in one car. Who drives?

“The police.”

A few days later, De Gregorio left the organization.

The dark humour from a long-serving official was perhaps unsurprising amid a scandal engulfing the soccer organization that spans the globe and handles billions of dollars. On Wednesday, top Swiss federal prosecutor Michael Lauber announced that his team was looking into 53 potential incidents of criminal money laundering at the organization. Meanwhile, the Swiss private bank Julius Baer said it was freezing a number of FIFA-linked accounts. This all comes on the heels of the revelations last month from investigations by the FBI and Swiss authorities.

Insiders and analysts say that while FIFA president Sepp Blatter has allowed corruption to become deeply entrenched, the basic problems lie with the organization’s unorthodox set-up. Facing unprecedented pressure, FIFA is being urged to agree to adopt reforms that range from more transparency to deeper structural changes.

FIFA — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association — governs every organized soccer game in the planet. From individual player registration to the rules of the game to organizing the current Women’s World Cup that is drawing fans across Canada, all are under FIFA jurisdiction. Its main showcase, the men’s FIFA World Cup, is the planet’s most popular sporting tournament, generating billions in revenue. The global embrace of soccer brings FIFA executives extraordinary influence. It has also brought FIFA executives a series of extraordinary high-level investigations.

Four years ago, the FBI began to examine the organization, which had for years been the target of bribery and other accusations. In secret, the FBI put 25 soccer executives who worked with FIFA in front of a grand jury. The picture of alleged corruption that emerged touches on almost every aspect of FIFA’s business: fraudulent marketing and television rights, ticket scams, rigged presidential elections and bribery in the awarding of the host cities.

U.S. authorities last month unveiled a 164-page indictment based on the grand jury testimony. Then the Swiss announced they were also investigating the Zurich-based body, and the awarding of the World Cup hosting rights in 2018 and 2022, to Russia and Qatar.

The tales of potential fraud enraged soccer fans, who have been paying more for tickets, merchandise and games on TV as a result of corruption. Some feel cheated that vote-rigging may have cost their country the chance to host a World Cup.

And many were pointing the finger at the man atop the global soccer hierarchy.

Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, a former Swiss watchmaking executive, has worked at FIFA for 40 years, the last 17 as president. Two days after Swiss police raided a luxury hotel on May 27, arresting seven FIFA executives, Blatter won the presidential election for a fifth time. Four days later he said he would step down.

FIFA was Blatter’s home. According to a current FIFA insider, “Blatter made a choice to devote his entire life, everything he had, to the organization.”

Among soccer executives, Blatter is popular. It is partly his personal charm that feeds this popularity. In 2008, when the Star visited FIFA headquarters as part of its reporting on match-fixing at World Cup tournaments, Blatter was like the benevolent uncle at a family wedding. He stood at the centre of the vast reception room greeting visitors, arms outstretched: from journalists to dignitaries to ordinary fans, Blatter would shake hands, sign autographs and pose for photos. For soccer fans it was the rough equivalent of visiting the Vatican and being personally greeted by the Pope.

One international sports advocate alleges Blatter’s popularity is also partly because the headquarters of FIFA has served as a quasi-protection racket for national soccer federations around the world. Jens Sejer Andersen, international director of the influential Danish organization Play the Game, says when police forces have tried to investigate the soccer federations in various countries, FIFA has specifically told their governments to stop their probes, or face bans from international soccer. This is a threat that few politicians, outside the United States, have dared take on.

In return, many of those national soccer federations support the status quo at FIFA.

Blatter and others have been well aware of corruption allegations for years.

In the early 2000s, Michel Zen-Ruffinen was the second most important man in the soccer world, as secretary general of FIFA and Blatter’s protégé. But in 2002 Zen-Ruffinen stunned the sport by publicly declaring there was deep-rooted corruption within FIFA. To support his claims, he released a 30-page dossier summarizing the issues.

For speaking out, he was forced out of FIFA. “I am not surprised at this scandal,” Zen-Ruffinen tells the Star in an interview. All that the FBI “have to do is read the documents that I released in 2002 to find out what is going on.”

Despite all the scandals, FIFA, founded in 1904, is the world’s most successful sports organization, and much of that success is due to Blatter. When he joined FIFA in 1974, there were 11 workers in a small office in London and 80 national federation members. Today its membership has grown to 209 countries. The staff has expanded to more than 200 in the $196-million (U.S.) modern headquarters on the outskirts of Zurich.

But all that may matter little now to Blatter’s reputation. The FBI has leaked to American media that Blatter himself was a subject of interest in their investigation. It is doubtful that Blatter will be able to attend the Women’s World Cup final July 5 in Vancouver for fear of arrest and extradition to the United States.

Yet to a former insider like Zen-Ruffinen, the problem at FIFA is not Blatter, but the very structure of the organization. He calls for a complete overhaul of FIFA, which is set up as a hybrid international organization that allows it tax advantages but ensures little oversight.

“FIFA is a strange thing — neither a company, nor a charity,” said Zen-Ruffinen. “In general, the people at the Swiss headquarters are good. It is when you get into the confederations . . . that it gets weird. If I were brought back, I would change the structure to a private company with a legally responsible board of directors.”

At the centre of FIFA’s organization is the Zurich headquarters. Around the world are six confederations, representing each continent. The European organization UEFA oversees the lucrative Champions League tournament and the world’s biggest leagues like the English Premiership or the German Bundesliga. Canada belongs to CONCACAF, the confederation for Central and North America and the Caribbean. (Canada has never been implicated in corruption, but some observers point out that until this month it has never led any meaningful challenge to the status quo.)

These continental confederations are both part of FIFA and partly independent organizations. The hybrid structure, many critics say, is the problem. A single unethically run confederation can block almost any meaningful change at FIFA itself. And if there is reform or change at FIFA headquarters it does not necessarily translate to the confederations.

On top of the confederations is the executive committee, which is supposed to function as a cabinet. But its members are often appointed from the confederations. It is this body that has made many controversial decisions such as World Cup hosting rights for Russia and Qatar.

Small countries often vote together as blocs, which critics say opens the door to patronage, or worse.

Former French diplomat Jérôme Champagne ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat Blatter in the lead-up to last month’s vote. He proposed a set of reforms, among them meaningful elections.

“The executive committee is not the government of FIFA,” Champagne says. “It is a stock exchange where the presidents of the six confederations trade their (blocks of) votes. And forget Blatter — he does not control FIFA.” Champagne urged reforms that would lead to a more stable majority on the executive committee.

Even now, when asked if the president is personally corrupt, he says “Blatter is not motivated by money.”

“When the dust is settled, history will give him more justice,” Champagne said. “The problem is the structure of the organization. Sepp Blatter’s position as the head of FIFA is as if President Obama had to run a cabinet with John McCain — defeated with grudges — and Mitt Romney, preparing himself to run for the presidency.”

Jens Sejer Andersen, who has canvassed for better sports governance for 16 years, agrees. “It is no use talking about who will become the next president of FIFA . . . It is a toxic organization that needs to be overhauled completely.”

Andersen says the main problem is not the confederations or Blatter but the “one-country, one-vote” system inside FIFA: where a minnow like Western Samoa has the same weight as Brazil.

The president of the German soccer federation, Wolfgang Niersbach, has argued that the larger European soccer countries should have more votes than others.

Champagne disagrees: “The problem with world soccer is that the 1 per cent wants to rule it for themselves.”

He says the current scandal is being driven by people who want to promote the agenda of the very rich in the soccer world over the poorer nations. “What has been taking place over the last 20 years is that UEFA (the European soccer federation) has been saying, “OK, we have to call the shots. We have a form of divine right to govern world football.”

<stars>

For all the spectacular growth of FIFA, the list of corruption scandals during Blatter’s presidency is long and varied.

One controversy came out of a 2006 lawsuit involving MasterCard. FIFA executives had wanted to break a sponsorship agreement with the company and sign a more lucrative deal with its rival Visa. MasterCard sued and in a New York District courtroom, FIFA executives’ testimony on the witness stand was contrasted with their emails.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

In her ruling, the judge was scathing. She described a culture of corruption among FIFA executives, many of whom remain in the organization.

“While the FIFA witnesses at trial boldly characterized their breaches as ‘white lies,’ ‘commercial lies,’ ‘bluffs,’ and, ironically, ‘the game,’ their internal emails discuss the ‘different excuses to give to MasterCard as to why the deal wasn’t done with them,’ ‘how we (as FIFA) can still be seen as having at least some business ethics’ and how to ‘make the whole f---up look better for FIFA.’ ”

The case was settled with a multimillion-dollar payment to MasterCard.

The next year, it got worse. Swiss commercial police, after years of investigation, arrested and convicted several high-ranking FIFA officials for taking kickbacks in connection with an international sports marketing agency.

Then Blatter’s former boss — former FIFA president Joao Havelange — was named in a Brazilian police investigation on corruption. In his semi-retirement, as the honorary president of FIFA, the first leader of the organization’s modern era was forced out.

In 2011, ostensibly on a platform of clean government, Mohammed bin Hammam, a Qatari sports official and head of the Asian Football Confederation announced he was going to run to replace Blatter as president.

The usual clichés of clean brooms were trotted out, yet Bin Hammam’s campaign kicked off a series of even more embarrassing scandals for FIFA. The most striking — according to the U.S. indictment — was when the then president of CONCACAF, Jack Warner, a supporter of bin Hammam, told a hall of CONCACAF delegates that they should take the $40,000 in cash that bin Hammam was offering each one of them, saying: “There are people here who think they are more pious than thou. If you’re pious, open a church, friends. Our business is our business.”

Even by FIFA standards this was too much — particularly when the entire incident was filmed and then posted online. Both Warner and bin Hammam were forced out of FIFA. Both promised never to deal with the sport again. Bin Hammam has not been criminally charged. Warner, indicted in the FBI probe, has promised to spill secrets about Blatter.

Now with two more high-level police investigations against FIFA, and its long-serving president saying he will step down, the current administration seems in peril and the entire organization faces huge pressure for reform.

However, it is not even clear that Blatter will leave the organization. This week, Swiss media quoted sources saying Blatter is being urged to stay on as president. They point out that he never actually used the word “resign” in his purported departure speech. Other FIFA insiders told the Star that Blatter is moving to place a chosen protégé in charge of the organization to carry on his legacy.

But if FIFA wanted to get serious about reform, theremay be a relatively easy solution for many problems: get a Canadian.

There are actually two Canadians on the international stage who have the skills to help in the current crisis.

Alexandra Wrage is a lawyer and expert in battling corruption. She was brought into FIFA after the scandals in 2011.

Wrage proposed a series of reforms to make the body more transparent: background checks on candidates for senior offices; publishing all executive salaries; openly conducting the bidding to host World Cups; appointing more women to top positions.

In 2013, the FIFA executive committee turned down almost all of Wrage’s ideas, and she resigned.

The other Canadian with real-life experience is Richard Pound. In 2002, after the bribery uncovered relating the Salt Lake City Olympics, Pound led the cleanup of the International Olympic Committee. These changes have restored some of the organization’s credibility.

Pound or someone similar would have the advantage of being an outsider unworried about any entrenched agendas.

It would seem unlikely that FIFA has the courage or will to bring in people like Wrage or Pound. So for now, the future of the organization will be in the hands of police investigators rather than soccer executives.

WHO WILL SUCCEED BLATTER?

The list of possible contenders for soccer’s top job is a long one. Suggestions in the media range from Brazilian soccer genius Zico to Italian ex-referee Pierluigi Collina (he of bald head and bad-attitude fame) to Vladimir Putin.

FIFA insiders, however, have identified these five as the strongest candidates:

Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein: The relatively young Jordanian prince who stood against Sepp Blatter in is the bookmakers’ favourite at (Odds: 5-4). He has support in Asia, but whether he can hold on to all his votes with stronger candidates in the field is unclear.

Michel Platini: A former French soccer star and the current head of the European soccer federation (UEFA), Platini has been gunning to be head of FIFA since he retired from playing. Intensely ambitious, yet has caused problems in Europe with his strong anti-corruption stance. (9-4)

Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah: The Kuwaiti kingmaker in international sport, he is hugely influential in FIFA. The head of the Olympic Council of Asia, he is not well-known in Europe or North America but has vast financial resources. (9-2)

Sunil Gulati: The American representative is the wild card of the pack. Though he’s not even on the lists of most U.K. bookmakers, several FIFA insiders believe Gulati may consider taking a run at the top post. Ironically, the FBI investigation – described by the Chinese and Russians as “imperialism” – could hinder Gulati’s chances.

Issa Hayatou: The head of the Confederation of African Football is that continent’s contender for the top position. He tried to gain the FIFA presidency in 2002 but lost by a large margin to Blatter. He has been linked by the U.K. media to bribery allegations in awarding the 2022 World Cup hosting rights to Qatar. A very long shot (25-1).

(Odds from http://www.oddschecker.com/football/football-specials/fifa/to-be-elected-president )

Declan Hill has written two bestselling books on match-fixing and corruption in international sport and has testified before various European parliaments, the IOC and UEFA.

Read more about: