What Fifa and AIIB tell us about the world order
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SEPP Blatter's ejection as president of world soccer's governing body and the political spat over the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) illustrate the limits to abuse of power and patronage. Behind the goings-on around Fifa and AIIB are 10 common messages.
US extra-territoriality can reach only so far. The long arm of the US law allowed Swiss police, with US judicial authority, to arrest allegedly corrupt Fifa officials in Zurich. Years of US over-extension at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have led China to fight back by launching, with unexpected global support, its own infrastructure bank.
The old order is changing - and some people don't like it. Mr Blatter was able to cling on beyond the bounds of ludicrousness by expanding football's frontiers to emerging market economies, the source of much of his support. The world's centre of gravity has shifted, not always to the hitherto kingpins' liking - as America's distaste for the AIIB initiative displays.
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