Live data from Hacker News

Sepp Blatter to quit as president amid corruption scandal

bbc.com

31–40 of 57 posts

Re: Sepp Blatter to quit as president amid corruption scandal

#31
It's convenient that he steps down now, mere days after the election that swore him into power once again. If he stepped down during the election Prince Ali would have won. This way, Blatter can call his own election and personally vouch for a new candidate to take over.

To me, Blatter was just the face of corruption. I simply cannot see someone from inside FIFA being able to resolve the corruption problems, mostly because these people are the problem. This isn't a new thing, and this isn't something that arrived with Blatter. Some journalists have been investigating corruption in FIFA for decades. Hell, most countries have been a part of it. It's only surfacing now because the bribery is so blatant, and our bribes simply weren't enough.

People will cheer and say that "we finally did it", but I cannot see anything truly changing. The only way FIFA will change is through the authorities.

Re: Sepp Blatter to quit as president amid corruption scandal

#32
post #4

McDonalds paired with Lime-Rita's for John Oliver. The most powerful or prescient talking head on TV? Quite possibly.

His show is awesome and really hit the ground running! Really makes the Colbert Report replacement (The Nightly Show) look terrible by comparison (started around the same time but to be fair LWT is once a week while TNS is 4 days/week). Looking forward to other things that John will bring into the light, I've learned quite a bit from his show (or rather his show has wetted my appetite to do more research on topics he…

The thing I like so much about LWT is that some of the segments are a good 12-15 minutes long, which is an eternity in TV land. With that time, he can actually dig into topics with more depth to give viewers a better understanding of the background and what is happening (and still manage to be hilarious). I think back to his bit on the supplements industry as a good example of this.

I NEVER see this type of analysis on any news shows besides Frontline.

Re: Sepp Blatter to quit as president amid corruption scandal

#37
post #4

McDonalds paired with Lime-Rita's for John Oliver. The most powerful or prescient talking head on TV? Quite possibly.

His show is awesome and really hit the ground running! Really makes the Colbert Report replacement (The Nightly Show) look terrible by comparison (started around the same time but to be fair LWT is once a week while TNS is 4 days/week). Looking forward to other things that John will bring into the light, I've learned quite a bit from his show (or rather his show has wetted my appetite to do more research on topics he…

Remember, it's still a comedy show and he himself does not claim otherwise. Chunks of salt.

Re: Sepp Blatter to quit as president amid corruption scandal

#38
post #7

Will Putin come to his aid?

> Will Putin come to his aid?

Putin already tried to do so [0] by painting the corruption investigation as unjust US persecution.

[0] Well, more likely tried to pre-empt any effect the investigation of FIFA corruption would have on Russia's 2018 World Cup, but it amounts to the same thing in effect.

Re: Sepp Blatter to quit as president amid corruption scandal

#40
post #9

Just wondering - has anyone heared any other side of the story? Whenever a story appears to be such clear cut black and white with one evil villain, my septics radar goes up.

I suspect he was at least complicit. One other side of the story is this: Why does the US care? The answer is that if getting the World Cup essentially requires bribes then that makes it impossible for the US to compete, because bribery is prosecuted in the US. So this is less about justice than economic benefit.

It's FIFA regime change.

Post reply on HN