Sepp Blatter is guilty of crimes against soul of the game

Fifa president believes football can help bring world peace but he has offended too many people to be taken seriously.

Scroll through the 276 people and institutions followed by Sepp Blatter on Twitter and note his musical tastes from Mick Jagger to James Blunt. See his fascination with seats of power from the White House to the Oxford Union, to opinion-formers from Kofi Annan to the Pope, Barack Obama to Rupert Murdoch.
Fifa’s president also pays heed to such corporate paymasters as Coca-Cola, Budweiser, adidas and Visa. Blatter also has a significant interest with the Nobel Peace Center, the official museum in Oslo that lauds the Laureates.
In confirming he would be standing for a fifth term as Fifa’s sovereign ruler, Blatter intensifies what cynics believe is a campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize. Blatter, you see, is on “a mission”. He, and Fifa, can save the world, apparently. He even made the remarkable claim that Fifa is “trying to help and bring a solution that is really, really difficult between Israel and Palestine”.
His “mission” is to “bring the good elements of football, discipline, fair play and respect into our society directly, into the families, at school level, in the business and - why not? - in politics. This, then, would be the end of my mission’’. It is a preposterous consideration, of course, but Blatter might just be dreaming of joining the luminous likes of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa in the Nobel pantheon.
It is September, the month that the Norwegian Nobel Committee begins receiving nominations, starting a 13-month process for the Laureates to be chosen. Blatter in Nobel company? It would be like Del Boy being voted onto the board of Harvard Business School.

During his pre-recorded interview to the Soccerex convention on Monday, Blatter was asked about the admirable Sunday Times investigation into Fifa corruption. He responded by saying it left him “suffering” at the time, but he was pleased to be “cleared” and how all he wanted was “fair play and respect”.
Nobody has claimed Blatter is or was on the take. His crime is more one against the soul of the game, of a culture of corruption spreading through parts of Fifa on his watch, of his lazy approach to combating intolerance, of the five-star bubble that he and his executives inhabit and the Fifa motorcades adding to the Rio traffic.
But he is on “a mission”, seemingly craving the secular sainthood that is the Oslo canonising. It is to be hoped that the good Norwegian professors and company do due diligence on Blatter if he is nominated and consider certain episodes.
Consider his just “shake hands” advice to players who endured racism on the pitch. Consider his serial sexism, from his “tighter shorts” suggestion to improve the women’s game, to his command to three female board members of Fifa to “say something, ladies, you’re always speaking at home” to his curt “listen lady” to a reporter who had asked him a legitimate question about corruption.
Blatter offended many by responding to criticism of John Terry having an affair with Wayne Bridge’s former girlfriend as “if this had happened in, let’s say Latin countries, then I think he would have been applauded”. He used the word “slavery” in the context of Cristiano Ronaldo’s £80 million transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid. He insisted that gay footballers and fans going to homophobic Qatar in 2022 “should refrain from any sexual activities”.
Shakespeare would have had a field day with Blatter, a character both cynical and comical, a figure of power and wealth. King Lear-jet. But it would be too easy to say Blatter has the gift of the gaffe. He is no fool.
The 78-year-old Swiss harnesses the sophisticated cunning of a veteran lawyer with the ability to plot moves like a chess grandmaster and a politician’s knack of ensuring his power-base remains loyal.
Blatter’s not all bad or mad. He loves the sport. His desire for managers to be allowed challenges to decisions, either one or two per half, is an idea worth trialling. Strangely, this video technology was pushed by Greg Dyke, the Football Association chairman, at the last IFAB meeting when Blatter was dismissive of the proposal but has since changed his mind.
The most powerful man in football usually runs rings around the FA without breaking into more than a trot. He did like his English pet, Geoff Thompson, a very moral man who still never stood up to Blatter on the Fifa ExCo. Adam Crozier, Lord Triesman, David Bernstein: Blatter has seen them all off. He will see Dyke off as well.
The FA chairman insists that his organisation, which is still piqued by the 2018/22 voting shenanigans, will not bid to host the World Cup while Blatter remains at Fifa. During his sermon to Soccerex, Blatter responded in typically belittling fashion that in football “you learn to win but also to lose”, reminding Dyke that “fair play was invented by England - so let’s celebrate fair play’’.
This is Blatter’s default attack mode, throwing down the “fair play” card when it is a quality rarely associated with Fifa. Yet it is pointless FA officials simply adopting the stance of the playground, saying they do not want to play with Blatter. The FA will not change Fifa from outside, throwing brickbats and running away. If they are unhappy with Blatter, they must put up a challenger. The only credible English candidate, someone respected throughout world football, would be David Gill. But whoever stood against Blatter would lose.
(Anyway it is good news that the FA is not pouring resources into another doomed World Cup bid. It should be investing more in nourishing the grass-roots and building an England team for the future).
Let us hope that a transcript of Blatter’s pontifications to Soccerex reaches Oslo. When asked whether leading clubs might urge players to boycott the World Cup, Blatter presumptuously adopted the player’s perspective as if he could have any inkling of the thinking of the modern elite footballer. “I was a player though not at the level of the World Cup.’’ He then makes the reasonable point that stars would surely love to play at the pinnacle of the international game but why bring himself into the thought process? Pure vanity. Blatter needs to remember he is not Pele.
Blatter’s ego is boundless, talking on Monday of how he was beseeched at the Fifa congress by “a huge majority of national associations asking, ‘Please go on, be our president also in future’.” At times, Blatter is beyond theatrical, beyond parody, beyond contempt. Oslo beware.

a lot of ironing out on the issue of tv evidence needs to be done, I feel he is saying what most want to hear, buy the votes get the support, then get a feasibility study to say it is too hard to initiate.

The guy is as corrupt as they come don't forget the findings of bribery in the awarding of the Russian & Qatari bids were according to Blatter racially motivated, Just as he was speaking to African delegates pull the race card that will win more support.