What I'll bet on is that Blatter has never taken a bribe or kickback personally or had someone do it directly on his behalf. I doubt anyone will be able to do anything but insinuate that it was. He'll come out with the rest of his public perception crushed..... And skate on through until this next term is over.
The process for the World Cup host voting has been more corrupt than the Olympics and this has more to do with TV rights than that. Basically for TV rights to competitions, FIFA and the confederations sells the rights to middlemen (who have bribed them) and then receive kickbacks on the sales of the rights to broadcasters and networks. For those who want to know, ESPN is Teflon from this because they own so much equity in the broadcast rights now and American rights are the most valuable. There is no middleman.
But the most telling thing will be if Nike really did force the Brazilian Federation to play Ronaldo in the 98 World Cup Final even though the man had a seizure the night before. If that shyt comes out..... Nike Soccer might as well become Jumpman Soccer, because it's not coming back from that.
It's been obvious Brazil has been run by Nike for a minute. Brazil, given the lack of the money, has way too many issues, Nike might be the least of their worries. Germany has the same relationship with Adidas, in fact instructing all players they have to wear Adidas.
Regarding Sepp, Outside of a big mouth and poor management, he hasn't been
that bad. He looked the other way but in regards to spreading the game and making the world cup way more popular he has done an incredible job. Women's football is actually a thing, something Europe and the rest of the world (excluding America) neglected. Blind and homeless football too, these have all become tournaments and part of the agenda.
Soccer is the people's game but it has exploded in the last 20 years because of people like Sepp and Jack Warner. It's an ugly truth. You have players from Africa, America, Asia, and the Caribbean using soccer as a vehicle to support their families, this didn't occur before.