In the hours after Sepp Blatter announced Tuesday that he would resign as president of FIFA, World Cup sponsors issued statements that read as if one very careful public relations executive had written several versions of the same message that was now so safe to deliver with Blatter on the way out. Only two of the five statements I received even cited Blatter, who, after all, was the star of the day.
All five statements were a variation on the theme of transparency and high ethical standards, which you can never go wrong advocating in the middle of a moral mess.