How was it still a surprise? After years—decades, even—of waiting for this day to come, how did it still manage to creep up on us all so unexpectedly?
When Sepp Blatter won the FIFA presidential election on Friday, most assumed it guaranteed his presence at the helm of football’s international governing body for another four years—or until an outside entity forced him out, whichever came first. Yet there the Swiss was on Tuesday, less than a week after his election success, announcing to a half-empty media room he was stepping down from the organisation that has been his life’s work.