It reads like a story that Ian Fleming would be proud of. Suitcases stuffed with bank notes picked up in secret from luxury Parisian hotels, Caribbean conferences as staging posts to distribute envelopes of cash to loyal associates. The FBI and Justice Department have compared the murky dealings at the heart of FIFA to Mafia racketeering. Indeed it may come to pass as the details unfold and the case progresses that Jack Warner, amongst others, will wish that he had been able to push informants such as Chuck Blazer out of blimps or into tanks of sharks.

The U.S. led investigation has focused on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa where Warner is alleged to have accepted bribes of around $10 million for his supporting vote. The misconduct is valued at around $150 million and significant enough, and more worrying, known well enough to have inspired a secondary business including commission payments and fees for such transactions. As Warner is alleged to have stated when questioned, “If you’re pious, open a church, friends. Our business is our business.”

The problem for FIFA, one also currently facing scandal hit banks and organisations globally, is that the extent of the corruption and greed is not limited to certain scheming individuals. It would be easy to paint figures such as Jack Warner as Bondesque villains enriching themselves, but the truth is that both the U.S. investigation and future Swiss prosecutions reveal systematic failures in governance at FIFA beyond those currently indicted. 

Global organisations, banks and other corporations are waking up to a post economic world where regulations, laws and morals are more than just ethereal concepts. Leaders such as Sepp Blatter may not be facing prosecution but, as FIFA push on with their controversial election, serious questions remain unasked and unanswered. How did such flagrant behaviour go unnoticed or not deemed unacceptable? How were two World Cups awarded to countries with poor Human Rights records and in one case with a climate that could potentially endanger participants and supporters themselves?

Alarm bells were surely ringing prior to Michael Garcias' damming resignation letter following the smothering of his report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. There is no doubt that the report and Hans-Joachim Eckert's controversial summary will be much discussed in the coming months. FIFA has to wake up to the failures within its own governance and compliance systems and, unfortunately for Mr Blatter, that starts at the top.

Sporting authorities, multinational organisations and other corporations need to look inwards as clearly no body is too big to fail. Proper corporate governance has always been essential and perhaps now leaders and boards who have hitherto paid scant regard, are waking up to this fact.