It s a serious question, and it s somewhat surprising that Blatter is the one asking it. Of course, making Fifa look like the victims of a marketing firm bent on expanding into other sports without fully considering the financial implications is a convenient way to skirt the responsibility inherent to signing the contract with ISL in the first place. That s the real sticking point for Fifa, explaining the back-story to signing with ISL and why they stuck with them when it was widely known the company was in trouble. They might not be the fairest questions, because if an outside investor had been found to save the company Fifa would have been able to continue with business as usual. Imagine the alternative, Fifa breaking the contract with its official rights broker less than a year before the main event on world football s calendar.
Businesses fail, even seemingly successful ones and sometimes risks simply don t pay off.
Hopefully that s all there is to the ISL story, and Fifa can get on with the actual job of selling next summer s World Cup. Otherwise, it will be a long year of allegations, denials, and conspiracies at a time when there are more pressing issues to deal with. There s a reason why Fifa has always curtailed direct government intervention into domestic soccer it doesn t work. Soccer has its own laws and bureaucracies starting at the most local of levels and building all the way up to Fifa, it s worldwide, and it s standardized. Yet European clubs have gotten a bit litigious of late, taking footballing matters into the courts and applying those decisions on leagues and entire Confederations.