The gloriously controversial Sepp Blatter has blasted critics of the Qatar World Cup and labeled them ‘racists’, in the latest twist in the tale of the highly criticized and questioned World Cup finals location decision.
The announcement of the Asian country hosting the World Cup has been met with much more opposition than any before, for a multitude of reasons.
First and foremost in this saga is the ‘bribe’ allegations, which have led FIFA to launch a full inquiry into the situation and they have said that their decision will be final. They plan to investigate the matter in the autumn months of this year and after their decision is made the matter will be officially closed.
Closing-the-book and getting-people-to-stop-criticising are 2 very different things though. Even better would be to successfully convince people they are in the right but there is no impression given that any priority will be placed there.
The accusations of bribery and the horrific stories of untold amounts of migrant worker deaths are very difficult for FIFA to counter, so Sepp Blatter appears to have gone for the jugular with a retaliation blow in an attempt to put FIFA into a better light. Will it work? Doubtful.
Few are ready to be won over by Blatter or FIFA, so his blasts are likely to only result in a bigger population in the Blatter-haters camp. It seems logical that if you are innocent you can find ways to show that fact without having to hit back with a smear campaign against a section of your detractors; Blatter has highlighted the British media as the biggest culprits of the proposed racism.
Here are his words for you to make your own opinion:
“There is a sort of storm against FIFA relating to the Qatar World Cup. Sadly there’s a great deal of discrimination and racism.
“Fifa will rule on the validity of the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in September or October.
“At that point, the president of football’s world governing body said, the “matter will be closed”
He was also quoted saying:
“The repeated, deliberately hateful, defamatory and degrading attacks by some media, notably British, on the image and the integrity of the Confederation of African Football, its president, its members, its member associations and the entire African continent.”
And promising (or should that be ‘threatening’?) to:
“…file a law suit, if necessary, so that the authors of this smearing and defamatory campaign against African football leaders are brought to book”
Blatter also added that FIFA need to combat “anything that smacks of discrimination and racism” and that “It really makes [him] sad”. These would be seen as noble words from anyone else’s mouth.
Are you won over by Blatter’s heartfelt claims? Or do you think he’s just making things up to protect FIFA’s decision-making powers (and his vote bank)?
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