As the beautiful game continued to grab headlines for all the wrong reasons throughout Wednesday, it induced a sense of ‘not again’ rather than surprise for me.

Corruption has been one of the tiresome topics in the business of sport for a considerable period of time now — though I must say ‘Baur au Lac-gate’ will take the cake for the sheer scale and drama.

There are many layers to the latest saga that is unfolding now — though it’s anybody’s guess if it will be of any consequence in cleaning up the most popular sport on earth and its Augean stables.

The trail of arrests of the seven high-profile officials — belonging to the Concacaf region — leads to the door of the not-so-honourable Mr Chuck Blazer, who decided to play the whistle-blower for the FBI.

A former general secretary of the Concacaf region, who was nicknamed ‘Ten Percent’ (for reportedly demanding that percentage in commission of just about every penny the federation bought in), Blazer certainly knows how the kickbacks and bribes for media and TV rights work in that part of the world.

The Sepp Blatter regime, for its part, suspended Blazer from football-related activities for three months two years back amid allegations that he fraudulently received more than $20 million during his tenure.

Is it then a question of the pot calling the kettle black? As we repose faith on the US federal agency to find out more, I am strongly tempted to draw a parallel with the case of Lalit Modi’s fallout with the Indian cricket board about five years back.

The flamboyant cricket official, chairman of the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) in it’s initial years, was the darling of the ruling clique till IPL first came under the scanner for a litany of malpractice like violation of Forex regulations, irregular share patterns of some the franchises et al.

When the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) banned him for being guilty of the crime, Modi’s famous words were that they were ‘all in it together’ and everything was done with the knowledge of Mr N. Srinivasan — former BCCI president and the current chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The two have been sworn enemies since, with the exiled Modi sparing no opportunity to take a dig at the latter on social media.

The other subplot, which is likely to become the main story in the coming days, is the Swiss authorities’ initiation of criminal proceedings into the voting process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

It will be Blatter’s main challenge to stonewall the demands for a re-vote once the 79-year-old Swiss is re-elected for a fifth term on Friday.

It was interesting to note that the tradition of corruption charges in Fifa hasn’t eluded the FBI’s eyes. They even made a reference to Blatter’s predecessor Joao Havelange, the grand old man of Fifa, who was charged with facilitating his stepson Ricardo Texeira’s (a former president of the Brazilian football federation) kickback from a famous sports marketing company.

Looks like it’s another twist to the protracted Fifa saga!