Is Sepp Blatter the worst president of any sports organization in the world? I think so.
Blatter, the president of FIFA, has faced a world-wind of challenges in the last year from horrific officiating during last summer’s World Cup to recent reports revealing that several of his “respected” FIFA panelist were accepting money under the table to persuade their vote. So heading into this December’s hosting destination vote of 2018 and 2022 there was a lot of negativity and following the decision made by FIFA to host the tournament in two relatively non-marketable destinations of Russia and Qatar, Id say that Mr. Blatter certainly isn’t winning any popularity points with us Westerners that follow the world’s most beautiful game.
But Blatter has very little sympathy to us Yanks and our English friends for missing out on the honor. In fact all that Sepp really had to say about the bad feelings with the recent choice (especially England) is that we are a bunch of “arrogant, bad losers”. Yes the president of FIFA referred to any entire country or even side of the globe of people as “bad losers”:
Now some of them are proving to be bad losers themselves. I sense in some reactions a little bit of arrogance of the Western, Christian kind.
Certainly not the most diplomatic words coming from Blatter especially considering he is referring to the nation that invented the game! But Blatter has his own priorities and obviously football culture and tradition come second hand to the conquest and establishment of football elsewhere. Blatter would continue to go on to list a few other destinations he would like to see host the football tournament (before England) sometime in the next 30 years and the president stressed his dream of “expanding football” further down the road:
It’s my philosophy to drive forward the expansion of football. The next regions that we need to conquer would be China and India. Football has become a political matter. Heads of state court me. Football has become a monster, but it’s a positive monster.
The whole speech that Blatter made makes absolutely no sense. How does somebody become the head of FIFA in the first place? On one side Blatter is claiming that he needs to conquer non-football dominant markets across the world. Of course one of those listed markets is China where their domestic league was just recently proven to be among the most corrupt sports leagues in the entire world and is a place where league officials and referees were fixing matches and deciding the league champions season after season under the table of course. Does this sound like a place that deserves the World Cup or one that does not?
And on the other hand Blatter claims time and time again that no corruption will ever be around the committee and the game again. But in this comment Blatter brags that “heads of state court me”. Are we supposed to be impressed or disgusted with this statement? I personally believe that FIFA has been “bad losers” themselves between their denial to admit the flaws with officiating last World Cup and their denial to admit that the committee is in fact the biggest problem with international football in itself. Collusion and corruption have outdone the culture and common sense of the game.
And that is a real shame Mr. Blatter.
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