Sepp Blatter - Football Dictator

The phenomonan that is football is truly a global game.  No other sport reaches out as far, and has the ability to unite so many people.  It matters not whereabouts in the world you happen to be, somebody will have a football.  You may not speak each others language, understand each others culture or background, but bring out a football, and you are instantly transcended into a parallel universe where everyone understands perfectly.  Even deadly enemies can temporarily become allies as happened during the Christmas Day truce of World War I in 1914.

Yet as we move into 2011, there is a growing sense that the beautiful game is being strangled to death and depravity by an evil power hungry dictator.  He cares not for the good of the game, and the passion it brings to so many millions of people all over the world.  In his mind, football does not belong to the world.  It belongs to him and he is in no rush to release the iron grip he enjoys.  That man, guilty of crimes against football, is the President of FIFA, Mr Sepp Blatter.

Sepp Blatter was born in the small town of Visp in Switzerland in 1936. His first foray into football in 1973 was unsuccessful after failing in his role as President of the Zurich Brown Shirts to turn the club fully professional. Two years later he joined FIFA as Technical Director, then spent 17 years from 1981 to 1998 as General Secretary. He finally made it to the top when he was 'elected' president of FIFA over Lennart Johansson. It marked the beginning of a unbroken 13 year reign over the game which has seen the reputation of the game, and FIFA as an organisation brought into disrepute on countless occasions.

The official biography of Blatter proudly informs us that following "the direct support and the interest manifested by numerous national associations from all the confederations", he was elected as President. There are plenty that would be prepared to provide an alternative explanation to his successful appointment. The election campaign at the time was seen as a straight fight between the upstanding, honest UEFA President Johansson, and the influential, shady unscrupulous Swiss megalomaniac. Stories were rife about packages flown by private jet from a wealthy middle east businessman to twenty of the leading figures in World football. These packages reputedly contained cash to the sum of $50,000. When British author David Yallop threatened to blow the whole bribery scandal wide open, Blatter acted swiftly and managed to ban the sale of the book in his native Switzerland. However his attempts to stop the publication of the book elsewhere were blocked. In The Netherlands a Dutch court ruled the claims were sufficiently concrete to warrant an investigation. Blatter refused claiming there would be little point as "I cannot open an inquiry into myself. The elections are now finished." Despite the suspicions of many, there never was an investigation into the ascension of Blatter. Despite the irregularities over the vote, in which 20 of the leaders unexpectedly switched their allegiance at the last minute, and despite Johansson's protestations after his 111-80 vote defeat, Blatter was in charge, and he could move forward with his plans.

Four years later, his re-election sparked further reports of bribery and corruption after FIFA General Secretary and Blatter's former protégé Michel Zen-Ruffinen submitted a 30 page dossier alleging financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest. The report was published to co-incide with the election campaign against Issa Hayatou of Cameroon. It followed the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner ISL amidst FIFA losses of anywhere between $30m and $120m depending on who you believe. Blatter responded in typically belligerent fashion branding Zen-Ruffinen a 'traitor' and likened him to Brutus. An attempt by an independent audit committee to reconcile the accounts at FIFA which may have swept away some of the veneers of stench and corruption was interrupted and finally suspended by Blatter citing breaches in confidentiality.

In 2007 he was once again re-elected, this time unopposed.  It was however significant that out of the 207 members eligible, just 66 chose to nominate him. 

So what of the Blatter Presidential term. Here I have chosen to pick my Top 5 highlights of the reign so far.

1) Refusal to introduce goal-line technology

"Fans love to debate any given incident in a game. It is part of the human nature of our sport.”

A topic that has been burning hot ever since Geoff Hurst smashed the ball against the West German crossbar in 1966. Fortunately on that day there was an eagle eyed Azerbaijani linesman who spotted the whole of the ball had crossed the whole of the line and the rest is history. Fast forward 44 years to the Free State stadium in South Africa and England were in the midst of a Lazarus style comeback after being thoroughly outplayed for most of the match. From two goals down, Matthew Upson sparked the recovery before Frank Lampard thundered possibly the best shot he'd ever struck against the underside of the bar. The ball bounced about two feet over the line before spinning back out. Germany, reinvigorated by such a huge chunk of luck promptly seized the initiative back and handed out a 4-1 thrashing to send England back home with their tails between their legs.

The incident, screened to billions around the world served to highlight the mockery of Sepp Blatter's insistance that football did not need technology. It joined a long list of goals that never were, but until now, FIFA had stubbornly refused to even discuss the use of it. No matter that technology had already proven to be highly beneficial in a plethora of other sports. Cricket and tennis have both embraced the power of technology in deciding borderline decisions. Rugby has also shown that holding a game temporarily to ensure a decision is correct is not only the right thing to do, but also does not cause the nuisance and inconvenience that critics might believe.

The National Hockey League in North America already uses goal line technology to settle disputed goals, and officials in Baseball and Basketball are allowed to refer to video replays to check on the validity of points scored. Indeed, it seems that football is the only major sport where technology has been absolutely rejected out of hand. Blatter argues that the costs would be prohibitive and that any changes should be able to be implemented throughout the game, not just at the elite level. However, surely any system which helps the correct decision to be made must surely outweigh any concerns about uniformity throughout the footballing world.

The Lampard 'ghost goal' was a major embarresment to Blatter, and thankfully he has been forced to reconsider his original archaic view. After sticking to his assertions that goal line technology was not on the agenda directly after the game, the day after he had this to say:

"It is obvious that after the experience so far in this World Cup it would be a nonsense to not reopen the file of technology"

So it seems that at least there is to be discussion, but it could be several more years in the technology wilderness before FIFA finally do the decent, common sense thing and install goal line technology into the game.

2) The opaqueness of World Cup bidding

“You can’t come afterwards and say so and so promised to vote for England. The results are known. The outcome came out clearly.”

It seems there is nothing Sepp likes better than a good old fashioned vote to decide matters of importance. After all, what could be fairer then each delegate openly declaring their vote one by one until the winner with the most votes is declared. Except, in the world of FIFA, where such transparency is evidently not part of the process. The 2018 World Cup bid team from England were in cautiously optimistic mood when they arrived in Zurich. Despite the potentially damaging undercover reporting work of Sunday Times and BBCs Panorama, Blatter had declared that the allegations would not be taken into account by the Committee. He then went on to describe the bid as "excellent and remarkable". It therefore came as a huge shock when England were dumped out at the first round stage after winning just two votes, one of them coming from its own federation.

It then emerged after the event that Blatter had reminded the voting committee of ‘certain media’ and ‘recent media coverage’ in the immediate prelude to the first round of voting. One of the men accused of bribery and corruption in that Panorama program was Head of CONCACAF Jack Warner. During the bid process, Warner had pledged that all three of the Federation's members would stick together and strongly hinted that it would be England who received the block vote. However, with the heat of allegations against him he warned "'They are vultures. If they have it in for Jack Warner their sport suffers and for me that is a disaster,'

So is the story of greed, corruption, bribery and cronyism a case of sour grapes or does it really exist. One would have thought that FIFA would want to attempt to clean up its image by becoming more open in the future. Not a bit of it. Blatter has refused to acknowledge any flaws in the current bidding process, and will not be swayed.

3) Blatter's plans to increase popularity of womens football

"Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,"

Blatter's biography reveals that he "aims to integrate not only the principal male protagonists into world football's decision-making process but increasingly also their female counterparts - women players, coaches and referees."  It seems to omit one of the less discreet plans for making womens football more popular amongst the masses.  His idea that women play in more feminine clothes was not just a throw away comment.  He went on to clarify them confirming that this was indeed a considered and valid point that he was expressing.

He encouraged female players to wear "tighter shorts" and justified his viewpoint by exclaiming that "female players are pretty".  He continued digging by revealing that the rules that govern mens and womens football are already different.  An example of this was women playing with "lighter balls". 

Following this revelation, it makes you wonder if Andy Gray and Richard Keys were simply following an official FIFA edict on how to behave in the football industry.

4) Players receive yellow cards for 'over zealous' goal celebrations

"football is a global sport, and thus the sensibilities of conservative nations and spectators must be respected"

Although you may have missed it, there was a time in the late nineties and at the turn of the millennium where footballers around the world were causing major offence.  The indiscriminate displays of joy and excitement after scoring a goal were upsetting the more sensitive souls in the world and something had to be done.  Thankfully, Sepp Blatter came to the world's rescue and in 2004 he implemented quite possibly the most mind-numbingly stupid rule ever when he decreed that all footballers who were deemed to be celebrating in an 'over-zealous' nature would be disciplined by form of a yellow card. 

So it followed that any footballer found guilty of such shocking behaviour as taking your shirt off, running towards your fans or hurdling the perimeter fencing would be cautioned.  In a time where players were increasingly getting criticised for only being interested in money, and not caring about the game, the team or the supporters, they would now be reprimanded for caring too much, or wanting to share in the joy they had just created by having a cuddle with a fan.

It led of course to ridiculous passages of play illustrated only last week when West Ham United striker Frederic Piquionne was sent off after scoring a goal which at that time had put his relegation threatened side ahead in a crucial game.  His manager Avram Grant was perplexed by the whole situation stating “It’s a joke. He scored a goal and went to celebrate with the supporters. Who deserves to be celebrating more than them?"

But as long as the pure and innocent souls watching football are not subjected to the sight of Didier Drogba's pectorals after belting a shot in from 25 yards, Sepp won't budge one iota.

5) FIFA hate underdogs

"There are all the best teams (at the World Cup), if someone has missed out it is because they haven't deserved it."

So what is the connection between Bolivia's national stadium, and 'Main de Dieu' Thierry Henry. Well they have both been involved in what seemingly is Blatter's distaste for unpredictability and upset. This should not come as much of a shock as already explained earlier, Blatter likes to ensure he is in total control of everything. One of the reasons that football is so popular throughout the world is its enduring ability to provide shocks, for the underdog to prevail. Not on Sepp Blatter's watch they don't and he will concoct as many rules to make it more difficult for the underdog as he needs to.

An example of this came in 2007 when FIFA declared that no football matches would be played at an altitude higher than 2500m.  This provided a bit of a problem for Bolivia who played their home games at the Estadio Hernando Siles which inconveniently happened to be at 3637m above sea level.  Even more inconvenient was Bolivia's recent propensity to win against the traditional powers of South American football.  The altitude was declared an unfair advantage to the Bolivians and the ruling was passed.  It took months of arguments and appeals for FIFA to grant Bolivia an exemption and as such, they remain able to play at their home ground.

More scandalous treatment of the underdog appeared in the build up to the 2010 World Cup Finals.  It had been a great European qualification process for the underdog, and as the playoffs loomed, there was a very real chance that 2 of the powerhouses of European football in Portugal and France would not be appearing in South Africa.  Instead, the likes of Slovenia. Bosnia and Republic of Ireland could be making the trip.  This clearly rankled with Blatter, and so just weeks before the playoffs were set to take place, he moved the goalposts by declaring that the playoffs were to be seeded.  This ensured that France and Portugal would play against one of the lesser nations so reducing the risk of a shock. 

Portugal progressed against Bosnia with a 2-0 aggregate scoreline, but France, despite Blatter's lifeline, found themselves at deadlock after 180 minutes of play against Republic of Ireland.  Robbie Keane had given the Irish the goal which took the game into extra time at the Stade de France in Paris.  Then French legend Thierry Henry decided to take matters into his own hands by first catching, then throwing the ball to teammate William Gallas to cheat their way to the Finals.

Sepp Blatter, no doubt delighted that his plan had worked defended Henry in the subsequent media fury saying "He was honest by admitting that he did use his hand, but it wasn’t his responsibility to tell the referee."   Such outstanding moral values shown from the President of FIFA, Mr Sepp Blatter, dictator of football.