SEPP BLATTER, football's very own Teflon Don, is no stranger to such commotion.
Accusations of corruption, cover-ups, bribes and cultures of secrecy and self-aggrandisement constitute little more than another day at the office, really.
Certainly, one can assume the 78-year-old has slept peacefully within the exotically-scented, five-star splendour of the La Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech - an opulent Arab-Andalucian affair in the heart of Morocco's fourth largest city with a Michelin-starred restaurant and retail opportunities presented by Gucci and Dior - during the two-day meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee, at which the rather inconvenient resignation of a certain Michael Garcia will surely merit a mention before close of play today.
Garcia was the American lawyer entrusted with the investigation into allegations of impropriety in the bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. He walked after his 430-page report was boiled into a 42-page offering from ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert that he effectively branded a whitewash.
Garcia appealed against Eckert's findings that the tournament hosts, Russia and Qatar, were clear to carry on regardless. FIFA kicked that out of court. Garcia then issued a fairly harsh resignation statement claiming FIFA suffers from "a lack of leadership" and that no one person or committee can change the culture which exists within the organisation. And here we are.
John McBeth watches this latest scandal unfold from his home on the south side of Glasgow and manages a wry smile. He spoke out about corruption within world football's governing body after being nominated to serve as a vice-president and was brought down in flames over hurtful and erroneous accusations of racism.
Time, however, has not blunted his tongue. McBeth has remained a known critic of Blatter and his acolytes and fears Garcia's stand will count for nothing as the Swiss prepares to stand for a fifth term as president later this year.
"Knowing Blatter as I do, I have always said that he will either die in the job or go to jail," said McBeth.
"The fact Garcia has resigned is, at least, a sign that someone is standing up to Blatter, but I don't know if it is going to work.
"Blatter has been exceptionally good at covering up for those behind him, such as Joao Havelange (who resigned as honorary FIFA president after being named as accepting a bribe) and Julio Grondona (ex-senior vice-president of FIFA). He must be looking for someone to take over from him and do the same.
"He will get Jerome Valcke (FIFA general secretary) in so deep that he won't be able to expose anything either and he will stand. The fact all this goes on in Switzerland makes it all the harder to get to the truth.
"That would only happen if Blatter lets someone else take over from him and expose what has been going on. Basically, it all operates on bribery and corruption."
Michel Platini, the president of UEFA, described Garcia's resignation as "a new failure" for FIFA. McBeth continues to believe that the best hope of meaningful change lies in the Frenchman rallying support in Europe and boycotting a future FIFA World Cup.
"Platini has stood up a bit more than others," he said. "The likes of the English FA have played into Blatter's hands.
"I could have told them they would get no votes when they attempted to hold the 2018 World Cup because no-one can put up with them.
"To bring about change, though, it would have to take someone like UEFA to say that they were not taking part in the World Cup and doing their own thing."
Prior to his rather brutal removal from the scene at FIFA, McBeth challenged Blatter on his salary, which, incredibly, remains some kind of state secret. He quickly discovered that there are many obstacles to finding out such sensitive information.
"I remember asking him how much he earned because there was no other way to find out," he recalled.
"His reply was: 'You don't need to know'. I told him that I did need to know if I was joining his executive. He told me again that, under Swiss law, I didn't need to know.
"He stated that the only people who had to know were the chairman and vice-chairman of the Finance Committee.
"Who held those positions? Grondona and Jack Warner. At that point, I realised I was barking up the wrong tree."
Warner, then the head of the Trinidad and Tobago FA, was the man who went on to play such a central role in preventing McBeth from taking his position at FIFA's top table.
The former president of the SFA, having been nominated as a vice-president through the International Football Association Board, had made comments in a newspaper interview, stating there were two or three people at FIFA that would cause him to "count my fingers after shaking hands with them"and stated the view that poorer nations in Africa and the Caribbean were out to "grab what they can".
Warner, an existing vice-president who had previously been caught up in a scandal surrounding World Cup tickets, branded him a racist. McBeth was duly disowned by the Home Nations and replaced by Geoff Thompson of the English FA.
Four years later, Warner found himself being investigated by the FIFA Ethics Committee on a handful of corruption and bribery charges. When he resigned from world football's governing body, all matters were very conveniently dropped.
"When you get involved with Warner and all that crowd, you begin to wonder what it is all about," said McBeth. "It is certainly not sport.
"I said in the past that money would follow you if you looked after the sport. If you look after money, you will kill the sport. They don't care, though."
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