This is who FIFA should replace Sepp Blatter with

FIFA needs new blood, and not just to fuel their vampiric powers

Fifa's headquarters in Zurich (Getty Images)

It has finally happened. Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have received eight year bans from all football activity as a result of the former's suspicious payment of two million Swiss francs to the latter in 2011, for work so vague neither man could convincingly describe it. This was apparently undertaken between 1998 and 2002 and they argued that this was due to FIFA's difficult financial situation at the time. We've all been there.

“You need some work done but you're a bit tight? Don't worry about it. Just pay me in nine to thirteen years. No need for a contract. I'm sure everything will be fine. See you down the banquet hall.”

There was insufficient evidence to prove bribery or corruption charges but this is football's version of Al Capone's conviction for tax evasion. With his face adorned with curiously unsettling stubble, a plaster and a healthy dollop of figurative egg, Blatter's words after the verdict sounded just like that of a desperate mob boss; part threat, part commitment to his increasingly ludicrous story. He said:

“I am a man of principles. These principles are: never take money that is not earned. Secondly, pay your debts. I'll be back.”

And that is the concern, that even if it is not Blatter himself, that someone like him will take his place. That this decision has been made from within FIFA itself is something that seemed unfathomable until the FBI turned up and started arresting befuddled old men in hotels. It suggests an appetite for change, yet their lack of transparency makes it impossible to truly believe they are capable of governing themselves responsibly.

Everyone at FIFA is tainted by their association with Blatter and the various bribery scandals engulfing it. The list of those separately under investigation is as long as Mr. Tickle's arm. Capone wouldn't have been allowed to decide upon the details of his own sentencing and FIFA cannot be trusted to make the gigantic amount of change that is required by itself. They need new blood, and not just to fuel their vampiric powers.

So who comes in? If I were in charge – and it is a travesty that I am not – I would approach Roberto Baggio. The man is a true football great who was awarded the Nobel Man of Peace prize in 2010 for his work as a Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN and his involvement in the Burmese pro-democracy movement and the release of imprisoned opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He has also previously worked as the president of the technical sector of the Italian Football Federation, quitting in frustration as his ideas on youth development and systemic reform were ignored. Those are credentials no bloated old administrator can come close to matching.

The idea that because somebody was a good footballer they'll be able to run the game from the top down is perhaps an overly simple one, as Platini has disappointingly shown, but even with that in mind what better candidate to use football's immense social power for good rather than personal gain?

Regardless of what happens next, FIFA need to be clear in what change will be made and who is going to make it.

Predictably, Blatter will take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. There is no contrition, no acceptance of any wrong-doing. Let's hope that in distancing themselves from this attitude, FIFA are serious about moving forward and are not just dumping a figurehead whose position had become so untenable it had threatened to bring down their whole sorry racket.

Jim Campbell is the presenter on The Football Ramble podcast