Why Sepp Blatter sees Fifa, not Qatar, as the true victim of prejudice
Marina Hyde
Marina Hyde
The Swiss has finally stopped pretending to govern a sporting body and openly placed himself on a par with heads of state
Sepp Blatter
Sepp Blatter said Fifa is still strong and 'I still have fire inside me'. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Fifa via Getty Images
Wednesday 11 June 2014 11.14 BST
Why have people assumed that Sepp Blatter is talking about Qatar when he accuses the British media of “racism” toward unnamed parties? I have another theory, given the persecuted tenor of the rest of the Fifa president’s comments: that he has finally gone the whole hog and perceives Fifa itself to be a race. For a man who has for so long characterised himself as noble yet besieged, you have to think Fifa-ism was always the next logical step.
At no stage in his provocative rallying cry to the African and Asian football confederations this week did Blatter explicitly delineate what he felt was racist about journalists exposing bribery and corruption in what amounts to the awarding of billion-dollar contracts. But the overwhelming focus of his dewy-eyed speeches about defending Fifa against those who seek to destroy it suggests that Herr Blatter casts world football’s governing body itself as the true victim of prejudice.
“Once again there is a sort of storm against Fifa relating to the Qatar World Cup,” he warned. “Sadly there’s a great deal of discrimination and racism and this hurts me.”
Though Blatter stopped shy of floating terms such as lynching, his sense of himself as some nebulous kind of civil rights leader appears stronger by the day. “I still have fire inside me,” he intoned, repeatedly stressing that when united (behind him, obviously), Fifa is “so strong”. Stirring stuff. In fact, I can only dream that in the forthcoming movie about itself, which Fifa has bankrolled to the tune of £16m, the closing titles feature a slow-motion montage of the real-life Sepp going about his good works, set to Labi Siffre’s (Something Inside) So Strong.
Inspirationally, Sepp has a dream (and if only he was just dreaming). He has a dream of a day when his people will not be judged by the colour of their email exchanges, but by the content of their Swiss bank accounts.
When they can stay in five-star hotels, and take limousines down Zil lanes, and order 16-course tasting menus in Michelin restaurants, and think: God almighty, all this is free. Free at last.
Admittedly, there are a few glitches in my thesis – the principal one being that not three years ago, a certain Sepp Blatter was explaining how racism didn’t exist in football. If I recall correctly what we’ll flatter as his reasoning, so-called “racism” can all be solved with a handshake, because the world of football is only a game. As underscored by the allegation that Qatar’s Mohamed bin Hammam helped broker a major natural gas deal between his country and Thailand, via the latter’s Fifa representative. Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, rush goalie … marvellous.
Incidentally, it should be remembered Blatter is not alone in making inquiring journalists the scapegoat for questions that feel rather bigger. I’m sure David Cameron will have a view on the latest Fifa allegations – actually, hang on. Inevitably, the prime minister has already piped up with one. “My memories of that bidding process are not happy ones,” he explained the other day, “in terms of the way the whole thing was arranged and the role of Fifa and the rest of it.”
But this is odd, because my own memories of that bidding process are not happy ones either, primarily because I distinctly recall Cameron taking the time to criticise the British media for reporting Fifa corruption. The PM professed himself “frustrated” by a Panorama programme detailing chicanery in World Cup bidding, presumably imagining that such a pose would curry favour with the ordinary people who seem to remain such a beguiling mystery to him. Somehow, Cameron was unaware that anyone remotely well-versed in football (but not in its pay) knew England didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Doha of getting any World Cup under the current conventions, for the sort of reasons including – though not limited to – those currently being exposed by the Sunday Times. Back then, the PM sighed that a free press was something one had to “roll with”, so perhaps we can live without his interventions now that said free press has worked to investigate Fifa again.
As for the rest of Blatter’s stump speeching this week, it may yet come to mark the moment the Swiss finally stopped pretending to govern a sporting body, and appeared to openly place himself on a par with heads of state.
Certainly, there was much to enjoy in his perorations for those of us who have long droned on about Fifa being less of a sporting body, and more of supranational quasi-state. After all, and as frequently mentioned in this space, its rules trump any country’s constitution, it insists on its own legal system via those “Fifa World Cup Courts”, it sets its own tax liabilities (a tempting O%) in the aptly classified “host” nations to which it parasitically attaches itself every four years … the list goes on.
Even so, it felt pointedly candid of Blatter to draw attention to Fifa’s immense riches at a time when “states are in debt”. That the Fifa president should choose this particular moment to imply that his organisation’s peer group consists not of sporting entities, but of sovereign nations, feels significant.
It has been a long walk to freedom, but on the eve of his fifth presidential term, Blatter seems to have got there at last.
Marina Hyde
Marina Hyde
The Swiss has finally stopped pretending to govern a sporting body and openly placed himself on a par with heads of state
Sepp Blatter
Sepp Blatter said Fifa is still strong and 'I still have fire inside me'. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Fifa via Getty Images
Wednesday 11 June 2014 11.14 BST
Why have people assumed that Sepp Blatter is talking about Qatar when he accuses the British media of “racism” toward unnamed parties? I have another theory, given the persecuted tenor of the rest of the Fifa president’s comments: that he has finally gone the whole hog and perceives Fifa itself to be a race. For a man who has for so long characterised himself as noble yet besieged, you have to think Fifa-ism was always the next logical step.
At no stage in his provocative rallying cry to the African and Asian football confederations this week did Blatter explicitly delineate what he felt was racist about journalists exposing bribery and corruption in what amounts to the awarding of billion-dollar contracts. But the overwhelming focus of his dewy-eyed speeches about defending Fifa against those who seek to destroy it suggests that Herr Blatter casts world football’s governing body itself as the true victim of prejudice.
“Once again there is a sort of storm against Fifa relating to the Qatar World Cup,” he warned. “Sadly there’s a great deal of discrimination and racism and this hurts me.”
Though Blatter stopped shy of floating terms such as lynching, his sense of himself as some nebulous kind of civil rights leader appears stronger by the day. “I still have fire inside me,” he intoned, repeatedly stressing that when united (behind him, obviously), Fifa is “so strong”. Stirring stuff. In fact, I can only dream that in the forthcoming movie about itself, which Fifa has bankrolled to the tune of £16m, the closing titles feature a slow-motion montage of the real-life Sepp going about his good works, set to Labi Siffre’s (Something Inside) So Strong.
Inspirationally, Sepp has a dream (and if only he was just dreaming). He has a dream of a day when his people will not be judged by the colour of their email exchanges, but by the content of their Swiss bank accounts.
When they can stay in five-star hotels, and take limousines down Zil lanes, and order 16-course tasting menus in Michelin restaurants, and think: God almighty, all this is free. Free at last.
Admittedly, there are a few glitches in my thesis – the principal one being that not three years ago, a certain Sepp Blatter was explaining how racism didn’t exist in football. If I recall correctly what we’ll flatter as his reasoning, so-called “racism” can all be solved with a handshake, because the world of football is only a game. As underscored by the allegation that Qatar’s Mohamed bin Hammam helped broker a major natural gas deal between his country and Thailand, via the latter’s Fifa representative. Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, rush goalie … marvellous.
Incidentally, it should be remembered Blatter is not alone in making inquiring journalists the scapegoat for questions that feel rather bigger. I’m sure David Cameron will have a view on the latest Fifa allegations – actually, hang on. Inevitably, the prime minister has already piped up with one. “My memories of that bidding process are not happy ones,” he explained the other day, “in terms of the way the whole thing was arranged and the role of Fifa and the rest of it.”
But this is odd, because my own memories of that bidding process are not happy ones either, primarily because I distinctly recall Cameron taking the time to criticise the British media for reporting Fifa corruption. The PM professed himself “frustrated” by a Panorama programme detailing chicanery in World Cup bidding, presumably imagining that such a pose would curry favour with the ordinary people who seem to remain such a beguiling mystery to him. Somehow, Cameron was unaware that anyone remotely well-versed in football (but not in its pay) knew England didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Doha of getting any World Cup under the current conventions, for the sort of reasons including – though not limited to – those currently being exposed by the Sunday Times. Back then, the PM sighed that a free press was something one had to “roll with”, so perhaps we can live without his interventions now that said free press has worked to investigate Fifa again.
As for the rest of Blatter’s stump speeching this week, it may yet come to mark the moment the Swiss finally stopped pretending to govern a sporting body, and appeared to openly place himself on a par with heads of state.
Certainly, there was much to enjoy in his perorations for those of us who have long droned on about Fifa being less of a sporting body, and more of supranational quasi-state. After all, and as frequently mentioned in this space, its rules trump any country’s constitution, it insists on its own legal system via those “Fifa World Cup Courts”, it sets its own tax liabilities (a tempting O%) in the aptly classified “host” nations to which it parasitically attaches itself every four years … the list goes on.
Even so, it felt pointedly candid of Blatter to draw attention to Fifa’s immense riches at a time when “states are in debt”. That the Fifa president should choose this particular moment to imply that his organisation’s peer group consists not of sporting entities, but of sovereign nations, feels significant.
It has been a long walk to freedom, but on the eve of his fifth presidential term, Blatter seems to have got there at last.
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