Football’s power corridors have become the modern day equivalent of the Roman Coliseum. The crowds want more blood, more guts and more lives: scandal reigns. All of a sudden it is less about the spectacle and more a perverse look at the killing ground beneath us.Heads roll while the almighty emperors decide fate with a simple wagging of the thumb – only now, the emperor could be changing.

Saturday will see Blatter take to the stage for the first time since his unopposed victory in the race for the FIFA presidency.

The most slippery of plutocrats may still rule supreme over his organization, but cracks have appeared outside of it and trust is at an all time low.

Inside his cocoon, Blatter is in his element. Favor comes his way in spades from small associations who enjoy the frequent – if relatively paltry –amounts of money the Swiss dictator sends their way.

If proof were ever needed of his all reaching power within FIFA, one need only look at the brutal banishment of his former friend and ally Mohamed bin Hammam in the murkily transparent theater of FIFA.

Just a few months ago, bin Hammam was perhaps the second most powerful man in football. He delivered – through fair means or foul, almost certainly foul – the world’s biggest sporting event to one of the world’s smallest countries. He was in the hunt for the presidency of FIFA and had substantial backing from associations seeing him as the lesser of two evils.

After a week of medieval style butchery, bin Hammam’s career now lies in tatters.

But don’t cross Blatter in his own home. The speed and panache of Blatter’s execution of bin Hammam was as exhilarating as it was bloodthirsty. If anyone was in any doubt of Blatter’s sway within his own corridors, bin Hammam’s current position in football’s Siberia is the greatest example that no one swings it like Blatter.

Outside of his house, however, things are changing.

Football clubs – mainly the likes of Bayern Munich and Barcelona – basically football’s true powerbrokers and cash cows – are sick of the world’s governing bodies. FIFA’s ridiculously clownish sideshow has made a mockery of football over the world and their little brother – run by Blatter’s brilliantly talented but equally greasy protégé Michel Platini – UEFA could be the first to feel the brunt.

Much like the collective bargaining agreements in the NBA and the NFL, the European Clubs Association (ECA) had a revenue sharing agreement with UEFA and FIFA that decided where the money would go and where the clubs’ obligation lay.

Ironically, considering Blatter’s victory dance tomorrow in Rio when he pulls the balls out of the machine to decide the World Cup qualifiers, the deal runs out immediately after the 2014 championship ends. After that, the clubs will have no obligation to release players for international duty and can opt out of playing in the UEFA Champions League. In short, football’s greatest two tournaments will be eating baked beans out of a can alongside bin Hammam, keeping warm round a flaming trash can.

The clubs have voiced the idea of a European Super League. Although no details have been put in place – and ignoring the fact that it could simply be used as a bargaining chip to prize as much money from UEFA as possible – the idea is actually a worrying one. FIFA and UEFA may be stocked to the rafters with people you wouldn’t trust to tie your shoe laces, but neither are the clubs. One thing is for certain: The clubs will be looking out for themselves as much as FIFA and UEFA look after themselves.

A Super League will almost certainly turn into an extended boys’ club of football’s oldest establishments. Small clubs will be left outside in the cold and press their noses against the windows, while Manchester United and Real Madrid enjoy the home comforts of the world’s most lucrative competition. The metaphorical comfy armchairs and smoking jackets will be just as contemptible as FIFA’s bribing and money laundering, or perhaps more so.

If Blatter’s puppet Ethics Committee’s banishment of bin Hammam proved that he has the biggest stones in FIFA, the clubs are showing they have the biggest in football, and they’re not afraid to use them.

Whatever happens, the bloodshed will be the most exciting part.