On Monday, we learned what had to be the least surprising development in CONCACAF history. Jack Warner, president of CONCACAF and vice-president of FIFA, and his lackey Chuck Blazer were both reelected to their positions in CONCACAF by acclamation.
Would it be tasteless to say of Warner, 66, "well, hopefully he'll be dead soon"?
Regular football followers won't need any introduction to Jack Warner, but for those less interested in the dark corners of the sport, Jack Warner is to CONCACAF what Kenneth Lay was to Enron, running the confederation as his own personal toy-cum-piggy bank.
Maybe you're snorting derisively. Look at the Canada fan thinking CONCACAF's out to screw him. Alas, the situation isn't so cute. Basically, Jack Warner ordered free tickets for the 2006 World Cup and he and his family scalped them along with heavily marked-up vacation packages, netting a cool multi-million dollar profit. Warner was caught with his hand in the piggy bank and escaped major sanction from FIFA thanks to Sepp Blatter, who needed the CONCACAF vote in order to stay in power. Warner was fined a million dollars - only a fraction of his illicit profits - by FIFA, and didn't even bother to pay that off.
Of course, maybe Warner's a great administrator, building bridges between nations and keeping FIFA running smoothly, such as when he went on a massive, unprovoked tirade against England's chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup and saying, among other tidbits, that noone in Europe likes them.
And that's sticking to documented facts reported by most of the world media instead of getting plain cynical, like looking at the weird fact that Trinidad and Tobago seems to keep getting easy draws for World Cup qualifying and that if a CONCACAF referee has ever made a decisive call against Warner's home country, no eyewitness reports have reached our world. Or the fact that, if you look at the 2009 Gold Cup schedule, it seems to be set up to guarantee the United States and Mexico a smooth path to the Finals.
So even if you don't believe a word that hasn't been reported on thoroughly, proven three times, and acknowledged as true by FIFA, anybody who supports Jack Warner is in the position of saying "wel, a few million dollars worth of corruption is okay" and then facing a devil of a time trying to explain what value he's bringing to world football without counting "ballast".
For crying out loud, Dale Mitchell could manage a confederation better than him.