US Attorney General Loretta Lynch attends a meeting of Interior ministers of socalled G6 group at the Moritzburg Castle near Dresden, eastern Germany.Arno Burgi/Getty Images
The noose is tightening.
And the neck may be Sepp Blatter's.
Suddenly deciding to quit after decades as international soccer's supreme leader, dispenser of billions in largesse to the impoverished supplicant nations whose fealty he commanded – not just come World Cup decision time but all the time – won't deter the "feds," as U.S. federal agents and Justice Department prosecutors are known. They are known for their tenacity and are capable of mounting massive, long-running and hugely expensive investigations.
"There is something that smells," the 79-year-old football chief claimed after a pre-dawn roundup by Swiss police collared seven soccer bigwigs at a lavish Zurich hotel last week and charged them with racketeering, money laundering and fraud. But Mr. Blatter wasn't taking about FIFA, the global sports fiefdom awash in sponsorship funds and TV payments that he has ruled for 17 years.
Rather, Mr. Blatter said the stench wafted from Washington, where the new Attorney-General Loretta Lynch said FIFA's powerful "corrupted the business of worldwide soccer to serve their interests and to enrich themselves." Soccer's supremo said U.S. prosecutors should busy themselves with busting Americans on American soil. Days later, he was re-elected and then decided to quit.
Ms. Lynch hasn't named Mr. Blatter. Rather, when asked whether the all-powerful football boss astride FIFA's pyramid of cash was a target, Ms. Lynch said only: "We will now be speaking through the courts."
That kind of talk sends shudders through some linked to racketeering probes. It amounts to a not-so-subtle warning that the long arm of U.S. justice can stretch far beyond the nation's borders.
Ms. Lynch has accused FIFA of almost a quarter of a century of "rampant, systemic and deep-rooted" corruption.
Mr. Blatter proclaims not just innocence but also ignorance of any wrongdoing by others in FIFA's ruling elite.
But the U.S. Justice Department has made it abundantly clear that it is not just picking off a couple of low-level officials caught pilfering the petty cash drawer. Rather, it says tens of millions of dollars in bribes were paid over decades to buy votes in decisions on World Cup locations.
U.S. prosecutors, armed with RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, can mount extensive investigations. Previous targets have included the Hells Angels and the Gambino crime family. FIFA is only the latest to join that unsavoury group.
Often, small fry trade what they know about bigger fish to shave years off prison sentences.
None of the seven FIFA officials arrested by Swiss police at the request of the United States last week was a Swiss citizen. All are currently fighting extradition but given the terms of the U.S-Swiss extradition treaty, it seems likely that all will be turned over to U.S. prosecutors. That's when some or all may begin to sing to save their skins and a new round of deal-making by prosecutors may get under way.
Under the Swiss constitution, Mr. Blatter, a Swiss citizen, cannot be extradited even if he is charged by a foreign power.
Still, it will be interesting to see if Mr. Blatter, long a globe-trotter, used to being treated almost like a visiting head of state as he toured the far corners of FIFA's realm, suddenly discovers an abiding affection for staying put in Switzerland.
Like other unindicted FIFA officials, Mr. Blatter now faces a new risk, of landing in a country willing to extradite him to the United States if it turns out a sealed indictment for his arrest exists.
Sealed indictments are a common feature of RICO investigations.
So is the painstaking assembly of documents and statements from corrupt lower-level officials willing to betray their more senior co-conspirators. Wearing a "wire" to secure evidence is often the price of getting a deal.
For instance, Mr. Blatter's name may be behind some of the carefully blacked out sections of previously secret transcripts released earlier this week. They came from the previously undisclosed trial of Chuck Blazer, a U.S. citizen and former FIFA executive committee member whose grotesque extravagance extended to a Trump Tower apartment for his pet cats and parrots and who agreed to co-operate with U.S. investigators probing FIFA as part of a deal to reduce his own sentence.
"I agreed with other persons in or around 1992 to facilitate the acceptance of a bribe in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup," Mr. Blazer said in sworn testimony during a secret November, 2013, trial. Later, in the transcript, Mr. Blazer admits: "I and others on the FIFA executive committee agreed to accept bribes in conjunction with the selection of South Africa as the host nation for the 2010 World Cup."
As part of his deal with prosecutors, Mr. Blazer wore a concealed microphone in meetings with top FIFA officials at the 2012 Olympics in London presumably discussing bribes and disbursements.
Mr. Blazer, who liked to post pictures of himself hobnobbing with notables on a blog called Travels with Chuck Blazer and his Friends, recounted a session with Vladimir Putin, then Russian prime minister on Nov. 25, 2010. The top FIFA official, later to become a key snitch in the current corruption investigations, described "a half hour exchange of wit, charm and effective communications." Seven days later, FIFA chose Russia as the site of the 2018 World Cup.