Is justice finally on the horizon at Fifa? Free Kick

Fifa is in mounting chaos. As the ISL scandal at long last stands fully revealed — as those two egregious Brazilians, Joao Havelange and Ricardo Teixeira, stand unmasked; as Sepp Blatter's presidential position totters vertiginously; as Jack Warner threatens revelations about him, his erstwhile mentor; and as the FBI are said to investigate the offshore finances of Chuck Blazer, who himself blew the whistle on his former CONCACAF buddy, Warner, does justice loom at last? The most remarkable feature of the cataclysm is how one participant has turned on the other. Thus it was Blatter, the protégé of Havelange, thanks to whom he so controversially inherited the Fifa presidency in 1998 when Sweden's Lennart Johansson seemed on shoo-in, who has denounced the now 95-year-old former president, while his former son-in-law, Teixeira, has decided to release the Swiss court judgements on their corrupt involvement with International Sport and Leisure (ISL). This organisation, which bought the rights to various tournaments and finally went bankrupt, are now shown to have paid Havelange and Teixeira bribes worth millions of dollars. As an immediate consequence, Havelange has had to resign before being ejected as a member of the International Olympic Committee, while Teixeira has melted into the background from his role as chief of the Brazilian 2014 World Cup committee. However, Havelange, for the moment at least, is still the honorary, if not the honourable, president of Fifa. Teixeira owed everything to his ex-father-in-law. He was a failed, bankrupt businessman years ago, owning, it was said by the former president of the Flamengo football club of Rio, just a farm with a few cattle. But Havelange transformed him into the multi-millionaire he is today. Yet how dismally significant it is that both men were allowed, despite their depredations, to stay in high office for so long. Veterans' return We have just seen two famous veterans return to the spotlight, with very different results. Thierry Henry, now 34, triumphantly came back on loan from New York, where he plays for the Red Bulls, to Arsenal to score an elegant winning FA Cup goal at The Emirates for his old club against Leeds. By contrast, Paul Scholes, at 37, was suddenly and, some might say recklessly, plunged back into action in the FA Cup third-round tie at rivals Manchester City after a long absence from Manchester United's team and presumed retirement. However, when he appeared as a second-half substitute, he almost at once gave the ball away and enabled Manchester City to score a goal through Sergio Aguero, which put their ten men en route to what so nearly became a dramatic draw. It seemed almost unthinkable that Alex Ferguson would choose such a taxing occasion to expose poor Scholes to such a trial.