Kathy Sheridan: Fifa may have met its match in US attorney general

Credit where credit is due. America saved soccer – and with just a tiny invasion of Switzerland. Sepp Blatter spun it as a little personal bias. “My mandate does not appear to be supported by everybody,” said the man re-elected to the Fifa presidency only four days ago by well over two-thirds of that strange electorate.

They re-elected him within hours of watching 14 of his top men being led away under cover of the Hotel Baur du Lac’s white sheets, having set their faces to stun, lest we might think they knew a thing about anything.

There are many questions one could ask about them but we’ll settle for one. How many of them overlapped with the ones who sniggered at Blatter’s 2004 proposal to boost women’s football ? His answer was“tighter shorts”, in case you missed it.

It seems trivial. It certainly didn’t seem to bother any of his buddies since he was re-elected several times since. But those words came out of the mind and mouth of the father of a female child, a dictator of a superstate with untold sums of public money and sponsorship at his disposal.

It’s not a big leap from that disgusting mindset to the vile, violent, misogynistic abuse chanted at Chelsea’s first-team doctor, Eva Carneira, by Manchester United fans among others. (The evidence is online, for those with the stomach for it.)

When three women were added to Fifa’s board a couple of years ago, Blatter set the tone: “Say something, ladies. You are always speaking at home, say something now.” It’s hardly surprising that a survey by the British campaign group Women in Football found that two-thirds of women working in British football had experienced sexism and nine out of 10 said they had witnessed it but didn’t report it for fear it would not be taken seriously.

Lives tainted

This week, Heather Rabbatts, a member of Fifa’s anti-discrimination taskforce, resigned following Blatter’s re-election. Her future actions will tell us a lot about the new regime. Mindsets like Blatter’s are every bit as damaging as the swamp of financial corruption over which he and his willing little helpers have presided. They taint lives, defile innocence and kill ambition.

So it is magnificently apt that Fifa’s nemesis turns out to be a woman. Loretta Lynch, the five-foot US attorney general, has taken on Mafia bosses, terrorists and sex traffickers. With that kind of CV, she might even sort out Fifa. And she’s all of 56. The funny thing is that at that age, Irish political parties would be putting her out to grass. That’s because the gender thing is seen to be sorted now, leaving youth the holy grail of election strategists.

Citizens yearn for vision and direction, so get out the unlined candidates. There is some dissent, of course. “Being new and twentysomething does not equal ability,” argued former FF senator Lisa McDonald,40, in the context of Averil Power’s departure from the party. But the message is out there.

“He’s 60. How much more potential has he left?” remarked the 46-year-old Fine Gael candidate about his FF rival in the Carlow-Kilkenny byelection – and they were men. What chance has an older woman? How many women aged 46, never mind 60, have been targeted by political parties ? How many would be tempted to accept?

Many women are coming into their prime in their 50s and have nothing to prove. The past couple of weeks alone have thrown several into prominence. Catherine Murphy TD (61), currently setting the country’s news agenda. Waterford-born Louise Richardson, nearly 57, has just been announced as the next vice-chancellor of Oxford University. Former president, Mary McAleese, 64 this month, a pivotal figure in the marriage equality referendum. To get their measure, try to imagine any of them heckling, name-calling or roaring buffoonish, sexist comments in any forum, never mind the national parliament. These are women of serious intent. Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald (64) says that women can’t stand all the posturing and fake outrage they see around them in politics, and she’s right. But who is going to fix it?

Toxic combination

Yes, fresh faces are needed, but they won’t emerge fully-formed or by piling contempt on discrimination. Older women know all about invisibility. There are few prejudices as toxic in combination as ageism and sexism. Think how often the term “old woman” is used as an insult.

It’s not as overt as in the US of course. Last year, Fox News contributor Erick Erickson said of a presidential run by Hillary Clinton (67): “She’s going to be old. I don’t know how far back they can pull her face.” He was standing in for Rush Limbaugh (64), who during Clinton’s last run, wondered would America “want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis”?

Ronald Reagan could joke about age : “I have left orders to be awakened at any time during a national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.” Imagine if Hillary or Angela Merkel (60) tried that one. The truth is that no age group or gender owns the patent on vision, energy, grit or wisdom. Isn’t that right, Sepp?