Why FIFA needs a Kenyan as its president

You can never trust those South Africans, sneaky fellas. Sepp Blatter, the just-resigned president of FIFA, must be regretting the day he ever made friends with our double-crossing cousins south of the Limpopo.

He should have asked the nearest African — South Africans will always go back on a deal! It doesn’t matter how sacred the deal was. Look, we housed, fed, clothed and educated them when the Boers were kicking their behinds under apartheid.

The unspoken, gentleman’s agreement was always that, once the Boer was out of power, our cousins would let us wet our beaks and eat some of the spoils of that particular war. Wapi!

As soon as the Boer was neutered, South Africans branded us makwerekwere and kicked us out of beautiful Azania. Well, it isn’t so beautiful now, is it?

Blatter’s kickbacks

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This is what happened. Mr Blatter made a small ka-deal with our South African friends when he gave them the World Cup five years ago: they would get to host the tournament, he would get his $10 million (Sh967m) in kickbacks routed via the Caribbean Football Federation and a bunch of dodgy Miami banks.

And everyone would go home smiling — the kite would perch, and the eagle would perch too.

But the sneaky South Africans didn’t really trust him, so they kept copies of all the cheques and money transfers. Imagine! Fast forward to two weeks ago, and America — which has always resisted getting involved in “soccer”, suddenly gets interested in the beautiful game. Or rather, how the game is run.

Rigging results

The FBI decided to give a very liberal interpretation to American law and because American banks and American dollars had been used in the corrupt deals, swooped in on FIFA, arresting virtually the entire executive committee save for one or two lucky souls.

Cue snitching and drama. The South Africans — sneaky buggers — promptly outed a copy of the agreement made with Blatter about the little sum of Sh967m.

Blatter tried to hold onto the reigns of FIFA, in vain — and despite the howling of his pack of African supporters. He is now more or less gone, and will almost certainly end up in jail.

All that is old hat though: a Kenyan should take over the presidency of FIFA. Kenyans are uniquely suited to the vagaries of FIFA’s top job, and we have qualities that other nationalities can only dream of.

For one, the level of corruption that the average Kenyan is ready to accommodate and tolerate would make a Nigerian oil minister look like a baby, barely out of his nappies. FIFA works and lives on backhanders and sly surcharges, and a Kenyan president would ensure that business continues kama kawaida.

Kenyans are also very good at rigging results — from sporting outcomes to real national elections. Nothing comes close to a Kenyan when you want a result that is the exact opposite of what actually happened!

FIFA has been accused of rigging the odd football result here and there, but it would take a Kenyan FIFA president to elevate this to the fine art that it really ought to be.

And finally, no one beats Kenyans at crying wolf and blaming the West for all our ills. In this, we would teach FIFA and Blatter lessons in passing the buck: He was bleating last week that America and the UK were bent on kicking him out. Well, we perfected that particular play, Bwana Blatter.

And to ensure that his “vision” is continued and his “work is completed”, as we say in Kenya, he should grab the nearest Kenyan — preferably a senior Kenyan politician — and make him FIFA president.