Since 1998, Joseph "Sepp" Blatter has run soccer's governing body like an old-school dictatorship. One hopes, no matter how this year's World Cup in Brazil goes, it will be his last as president of FIFA.
Blatter is using the World Cup to start his re-election bid for next year, when he will be 79. "I still have fire inside me," he said last week in Sao Paulo as he met with soccer officials from Asia, Africa and South America.
So what has Blatter done with that fire so far? For one, he has increased spending on personnel, management and the FIFA ruling bodies to about 21 percent of all expenses in 2013 from about 17 percent in the years 1999 to 2002. That's more than the 14 percent of revenue that FIFA spends on what it calls "development": aid programs for national soccer associations, women's soccer, charity and education projects. It's as if FIFA were a country where the central bureaucracy absorbs more money than health, education and subsidies to poorer regions put together.
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