Blatter

[Ombudsam]

Seriously?? How is there not a thread dedicated to what he said. Everyone can't be mentally bracing themselves for Suarez potentially getting done? Everyone's always wound up by every wrong committed by anyone who's not a favourite of ours in here. This is a gaping open goal. Get it in the back of the net.

 

Man's made hugely cnutish comments and should be hung out to dry for this, and what he said about women's football and homosexuality (but not what he said about John Terry having affairs and how it would be treated in Latin countries cos that's true).

[Epic Swindle]

RACISM!!

 

Have to laugh at the likes of Holt and Winter getting on their high horse about Blatter when they've been defending Terry for a month.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Masuka

[Stevie H]

martin luther king should have just shut up, stopped making such a fuss and just done a few grip'n'grins according to sepp. the mad, mad, enormous w*nker.

 

he's completely unaccountable though. there's simply nobody with enough power to force his resignation.

[New York Red]

He is a massive, massive c*nt.

 

He's single handedly created an environment of graft, corruption, hypocrisy, mismanagement and racism. In doing so he has ruined a great tournament and has left the world's greatest sport without a true figurehead and leader.

 

He makes me totally sick.

[Flasher]

Notice today how he's sorry, but only because people are upset with him, not because what he said was ridiculous. He's not sorry for what he said at all, he's only sorry that fewer people like him now.

[Stevie H]

he's utterly unaccountable though. doesn't have to answer to anybody and has those from his own organisation most likely to stage a coup to overthrow him well and truly in his pocket.

 

he's the corrupt president of his own bent republic. only ways he gets removed are via a political coup or by someone assassinating him. either way would work for me.

[smithdown]

It's like onomatopoeia with him isn't it?

 

Blatter!

[Stevie H]

his name is a verb in french. blatter, to ride roughshod over all manners, mores and ethics in pursuit of power and wealth. je blatts, il blatt, nous blattons.

[matty]

he's utterly unaccountable though. doesn't have to answer to anybody and has those from his own organisation most likely to stage a coup to overthrow him well and truly in his pocket.

 

he's the corrupt president of his own bent republic. only ways he gets removed are via a political coup or by someone assassinating him. either way would work for me.

He's the Berlusconi of world sport.

[Stevie H]

He's the Berlusconi of world sport.

pretty much yeah. gets to make up his own laws and regulation from a position of power, roundly ignores all accusations of wrongdoing levelled against him, shags minors etc. amazing politician though. not that that's a compliment or anything.

[aka Dus]

Jumped the shark ages ago. I can't be arsed any more with anything he says.

[aka Dus]

Digger:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8898054/Former-Liverpool-star-John-Barnes-says-society-is-to-blame-for-racism-problem-that-football-just-cant-shift.html

 

 

Former Liverpool star John Barnes says society is to blame for racism problem that football just can't shift

 

John Barnes, the former England international who endured racist abuse during his distinguished career, admits he is “not surprised’’ by the latest ugly incidents because football reflects a society taking time to shed ingrained prejudices.

Target: John Barnes backheels a banana off the pitch during match at Everton in 1988 Photo: GETTY IMAGES By Henry Winter

 

6:45AM GMT 18 Nov 2011

 

31 Comments

 

‘’I’m not condoning what Sepp Blatter has said or John Terry, if he’s proven to be guilty,’’ Barnes said. “I think Blatter should resign over many things, and this is just one. But those thoughts are based on stereotypical views drummed into us over a long period of time.

 

“People have been told for 400 years since slavery that black people aren’t as intelligent as white.

 

“White players always said to me: ‘You can call me ‘a white so and so’, I don’t mind’. But that’s because society has indoctrinated us over the past 400 years to think that that’s like saying ‘you handsome so and so’. That’s why white players aren’t offended. They’re empowered. Black people aren’t empowered; 99 per cent of black individuals would be offended being called ‘a black so and so’ because we’ve had 400 years of being dehumanised.

 

“We don’t know whether the allegations about John Terry and Luis Suárez are true. What we do know is that it’s happened before. The words they are alleged to have said have been said in the past year but it hasn’t been reported. Now and then there’s an incident and people are surprised. I’m not. I know it’s there.

 

“Any black player knows this. We’ve played against players, got into an altercation, looked him in the eye, he’s not said anything, but you know he’s thinking “you black ----’. He wants to say it but doesn’t because he knows he’ll get into trouble. That happens very often. When I played they actually said it. They called me n----- to my face. It happened in training, in matches. Any black player of my generation had it. In 1984 with England in Brazil, I had it with the National Front.”

 

 

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Four years later, the then Liverpool winger was targeted by Everton fans at Goodison Park.

 

“I had bananas thrown at me and monkey chants at West Ham and Millwall five years before that Everton game but because it was a high-profile match everyone took notice. It had been going on for ages. There wasn’t a game in the Eighties when you didn’t get racial abuse as a black player. I got racist abuse at Liverpool when I played for Watford. Then I played for Liverpool and didn’t get it. If I had played for Everton against Liverpool then maybe the Liverpool fans would have racially abused me.

 

“A lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon now about Blatter, saying he’s wrong – and he is. But if you want to have a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission, get in every manager and player who is over 40 and ask them: ‘Say you have never used the N-word?’ Most won’t be able to. Much more than 75 per cent of people back then in the Eighties would have.

 

“But people could not get under my skin. I’m a middle-class Jamaican boy and where I was brought up in Jamaica [in a wealthy military household] I was not meant to feel second-class. If I was brought up in England, I’d possibly see things differently. Ian Wright dealt with racism differently to how I did.

 

“Racism’s still a big problem in football. Racism can be invisible. How many black managers in England are there? Two. Black managers are given very short periods of time because people don’t believe they are up to the job. That’s racism. It’s not just a white thing. Look at the hierarchy of black African football who believe European coaches are better than black African. They treat black coaches with disdain. There’s this black dynamic of not feeling good enough.

 

“We are all racist to a certain extent. We all make presumptions about other people based on their colour, culture or ethnicity in variable degrees. We judge people even on their accents. When Eric Cantona said what he said about trawlers and seagulls, he’s a philosopher because of the French accent. It sounds intelligent. If Paul Merson said it in his Cockney accent, we’d say he was talking rubbish.

 

“Race, for me, should be social and cultural, rather than the colour of your skin. Anton Ferdinand would have more in common with John Terry than he does with some West African from Nigeria. John Terry will have more in common with Anton Ferdinand than a Slav from Eastern Europe who happens to be white. Racism is such a complex subject.”

 

So what’s the way ahead? “Football can do nothing about getting rid of racism. Society has to [do it], through education and people understanding why they feel the way they do. Prejudice is a problem all over the world. I’m surprised when I see black people in the higher echelons of society. I know the most powerful man in the world is black [barack Obama] but 400 years of indoctrination into thinking about a group of people as inferior is not going to change overnight. There was the human rights movement in the 1960s and yet 20 years ago we were still being racially abused – and it was accepted.”

 

Now 48, Barnes does see hope for the future. “My children don’t get racially abused. There’s a new British culture; those from 10 to 25 now identify with each other, whether black, white, Indian, Chinese.

 

“Black kids once upon a time would hold on to their West Indian or African identity because of their parents. Black kids now are British. Indian girls are wearing miniskirts and going out dancing. White kids are listening to black music. We are going through a transitional period.’’ Leaving the unreconstructed likes of Blatter behind.

 

 

[Stevie H]

Jumped the shark ages ago. I can't be arsed any more with anything he says.

#occupyfifa

[stressederic]

I think I read the other day something like; 'The pressure on Blatter to resign has increased further with Mark Bright now also speaking out against him'. Yep that should do it.

[drdooom]

http://seppblatterwithblackpeople.wordpress.com/

[Falconhoof]

fanny blatter

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

He's the Berlusconi of world sport.

you didn't so much hit the nail o the head as muller the f***** through the floor

[Ombudsam]

Digger:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8898054/Former-Liverpool-star-John-Barnes-says-society-is-to-blame-for-racism-problem-that-football-just-cant-shift.html

 

 

Former Liverpool star John Barnes says society is to blame for racism problem that football just can't shift

 

John Barnes, the former England international who endured racist abuse during his distinguished career, admits he is “not surprised’’ by the latest ugly incidents because football reflects a society taking time to shed ingrained prejudices.

Target: John Barnes backheels a banana off the pitch during match at Everton in 1988 Photo: GETTY IMAGES By Henry Winter

 

6:45AM GMT 18 Nov 2011

 

31 Comments

 

‘’I’m not condoning what Sepp Blatter has said or John Terry, if he’s proven to be guilty,’’ Barnes said. “I think Blatter should resign over many things, and this is just one. But those thoughts are based on stereotypical views drummed into us over a long period of time.

 

“People have been told for 400 years since slavery that black people aren’t as intelligent as white.

 

“White players always said to me: ‘You can call me ‘a white so and so’, I don’t mind’. But that’s because society has indoctrinated us over the past 400 years to think that that’s like saying ‘you handsome so and so’. That’s why white players aren’t offended. They’re empowered. Black people aren’t empowered; 99 per cent of black individuals would be offended being called ‘a black so and so’ because we’ve had 400 years of being dehumanised.

 

“We don’t know whether the allegations about John Terry and Luis Suárez are true. What we do know is that it’s happened before. The words they are alleged to have said have been said in the past year but it hasn’t been reported. Now and then there’s an incident and people are surprised. I’m not. I know it’s there.

 

“Any black player knows this. We’ve played against players, got into an altercation, looked him in the eye, he’s not said anything, but you know he’s thinking “you black ----’. He wants to say it but doesn’t because he knows he’ll get into trouble. That happens very often. When I played they actually said it. They called me n----- to my face. It happened in training, in matches. Any black player of my generation had it. In 1984 with England in Brazil, I had it with the National Front.”

 

 

Related Articles

• Matthew Norman: Blatter deserves the boot
   
  18 Nov 2011
• Blatter 'disgusting', says former City star
   
  18 Nov 2011
• Graphic: Why Blatter is wrong
   
  17 Nov 2011
• Blatter urged to quit over racism comments
   
  17 Nov 2011
• Blatter remains defiant despite condemnation
   
  17 Nov 2011

Four years later, the then Liverpool winger was targeted by Everton fans at Goodison Park.

 

“I had bananas thrown at me and monkey chants at West Ham and Millwall five years before that Everton game but because it was a high-profile match everyone took notice. It had been going on for ages. There wasn’t a game in the Eighties when you didn’t get racial abuse as a black player. I got racist abuse at Liverpool when I played for Watford. Then I played for Liverpool and didn’t get it. If I had played for Everton against Liverpool then maybe the Liverpool fans would have racially abused me.

 

“A lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon now about Blatter, saying he’s wrong – and he is. But if you want to have a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission, get in every manager and player who is over 40 and ask them: ‘Say you have never used the N-word?’ Most won’t be able to. Much more than 75 per cent of people back then in the Eighties would have.

 

“But people could not get under my skin. I’m a middle-class Jamaican boy and where I was brought up in Jamaica [in a wealthy military household] I was not meant to feel second-class. If I was brought up in England, I’d possibly see things differently. Ian Wright dealt with racism differently to how I did.

 

“Racism’s still a big problem in football. Racism can be invisible. How many black managers in England are there? Two. Black managers are given very short periods of time because people don’t believe they are up to the job. That’s racism. It’s not just a white thing. Look at the hierarchy of black African football who believe European coaches are better than black African. They treat black coaches with disdain. There’s this black dynamic of not feeling good enough.

 

“We are all racist to a certain extent. We all make presumptions about other people based on their colour, culture or ethnicity in variable degrees. We judge people even on their accents. When Eric Cantona said what he said about trawlers and seagulls, he’s a philosopher because of the French accent. It sounds intelligent. If Paul Merson said it in his Cockney accent, we’d say he was talking rubbish.

 

“Race, for me, should be social and cultural, rather than the colour of your skin. Anton Ferdinand would have more in common with John Terry than he does with some West African from Nigeria. John Terry will have more in common with Anton Ferdinand than a Slav from Eastern Europe who happens to be white. Racism is such a complex subject.”

 

So what’s the way ahead? “Football can do nothing about getting rid of racism. Society has to [do it], through education and people understanding why they feel the way they do. Prejudice is a problem all over the world. I’m surprised when I see black people in the higher echelons of society. I know the most powerful man in the world is black [barack Obama] but 400 years of indoctrination into thinking about a group of people as inferior is not going to change overnight. There was the human rights movement in the 1960s and yet 20 years ago we were still being racially abused – and it was accepted.”

 

Now 48, Barnes does see hope for the future. “My children don’t get racially abused. There’s a new British culture; those from 10 to 25 now identify with each other, whether black, white, Indian, Chinese.

 

“Black kids once upon a time would hold on to their West Indian or African identity because of their parents. Black kids now are British. Indian girls are wearing miniskirts and going out dancing. White kids are listening to black music. We are going through a transitional period.’’ Leaving the unreconstructed likes of Blatter behind.

 

Please everyone read this. I can't emphasise just how correct John Barnes is in everything here. You can't just highlight the good bits as it is all gold. Amazing amazing stuff.

[Stevie H]

got to love those mail readers / sockpuppets haven't you?

 

Best of the press

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/19/said-and-done-sepp-blatter

 

Daily Mail – revealing how Sepp "stunned the football world" with his "bizarre", "astonishing" view that players should shrug off racist abuse. Last month: Daily Mail comment piece: "Football might not be perfect but it's come a long way since the 1970s." Racism victims should "just put up with it and get on with the game" because "there are worse things to complain about".

 

• Among the Mail online reader comments on Sepp's views: "For once a sensible comment from Mr Blatter"; "Footballers - stop all your girly sobbing and move on"; "Don't like the guy but this time hes right… just get over all the political correctness and suck it up"; "Blatter's speaking more sense than he has in a long time"; Plus: "For once this man is correct. I sometimes wonder if the blacks are all that worried anyway."

[Billy Dane]

Had to laugh at Matt Lawson on Sunday Supplement this morning who was having a go at Arsene Wenger who reckoned the British Press were foaming at the mouth over Blatter because England didn't get the World Cup rather than any inherent racism Blatrer was displaying. Lawson had spent the previous 5 minutes ranting about The ridiculous decision to give the world cup to Qatar before launching into how rascist Blatter was....

 

Oldie Holt was on too, but only saw the bit with Lawson so not sure what he was pontificating about.

[aka Dus]

Interesting comments from Wenger here in Dion's article today.

 

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/colour-of-money-the-only-one-that-counts-in-fifa-neverland-2940134.html

 

Colour of money the only one that counts in FIFA Neverland

 

By Dion Fanning

 

Sunday November 20 2011

 

I think it's perfectly clear that Sepp Blatter is not a racist. Sepp Blatter believes in nothing. Racists have an ideology. It's a warped, twisted and poisonous ideology but they believe it.

 

The supporters of the English Defence League, for example, believe in the hatred they preach. They bus around England making the lives of ordinary Asian men and women miserable and they have been doing it when it was neither popular nor profitable.

 

Racists, on the whole, have shown murderous commitment to their beliefs over the years.

 

Sepp Blatter believes only in himself. He is football's Don King. "King looks black, lives white and thinks green," Larry Holmes said. King promoted many black fighters who thought he was championing them and advancing the cause when Don King was championing them but advancing too the cause of Don King.

 

Under Blatter, FIFA have taken many initiatives on racism. Yet it is legitimate to wonder if these were done because Blatter felt it was right or to secure the support of the countries that have traditionally backed Blatter. He has ruled FIFA with such astounding cynicism that there is no room for anything in his worldview but plans for his own advancement. Racism would be an unnecessary distraction from Blatter's aims.

 

After all, it was only a week ago that FIFA were claiming again that sport and politics don't mix, something which is a cliché and also a lie.

 

The lie was revealed last week in the reaction to Blatter's comments. Sport and politics had to mix to remind Blatter that racism remains an issue and that his words have consequences.

 

Blatter belongs to a world that thinks words and languages are just devices to make the next sting sound plausible. Corporate language exists as an emollient, a soothing noise to preface the closing of a deal. Nobody wants to be held to anything so words are most useful if drained of all meaning.

 

Last week, he intended, as he intends every week, to act only in the furtherance of corporate bulls***. In the past, he has said pretty offensive things about women and the gay community but the reason Blatter is not fit to lead FIFA has nothing to with loose or preposterous comments, it goes deeper than that.

 

Sport and politics must be separated by FIFA's president so that sport and money can mingle. Less politics means more revenue streams and that, ultimately, is all that concerns Blatter.

 

Blatter was spinning a fiction last week. It was the fantasy world he believes in where football has made the world a better place. FIFA live in a version of Neverland and last week, in his denial, Blatter sounded like Michael Jackson.

 

As he moved from interview to interview he repeated his strange philosophy. Presumably, his people were ushering him from one room to the next, telling him "that went well, stay on message". They'd have told him to carry on advancing this idea that the football field is a sacred space where everything can be solved with a handshake between gentlemen.

 

They thought that would play well in the boardrooms. Instead he offered a glimpse of how far gone he is and when he got into trouble, FIFA released a picture of him hugging a black man, Tokyo Sexwale.

 

And yet he did something useful too. Blatter's goal is to remove football from society and place it in the clutches of its corporate sponsors. The World Cup with its parasitical structure is at the apex of this. Host countries provide a backdrop but if it made more money they'd play the tournament in front of a blue screen in a film studio and use CGI for the crowd. That is essentially the idea of the World Cup in Qatar. Last week society fought back.

 

Yet Blatter was not Steve Williams, who is still carrying Adam Scott's bag despite saying he wanted to "shove it up that black a*****", when talking about Tiger Woods.

 

Blatter's words were not as bad as Williams' yet Williams is still out there putting it all behind him while Blatter squirms.

 

His name is in the same sentence as racism and that is bad enough, especially if you're Blatter.

 

Arsene Wenger made some interesting points in the aftermath of the John Terry-Anton Ferdinand affair. "I do not think that in sport racism is basically a problem, because you are rewarded on merit. However, in society I still think there is some job to do, and we are not at the end of it. But in sport overall, I don't think it is a problem."

 

Wenger has received the most vile abuse which he likened to racism but because it's personal rather than racial, it is more easily tolerated. He has questioned that tolerance but in general his comments were ignored, even when he noted, rather surprisingly, that "there's a real debate to how much credit you can give to something that is said on the pitch in a passionate situation. In a passionate situation inside the game -- it doesn't mean that you can say anything -- you are not always politically correct on the football pitch."

 

These words were barely noted because Wenger is a thoughtful, considered man who is clearly neither cynical nor a racist. Blatter, I suspect, couldn't have got away with them.

 

Wenger also said there was a line you didn't cross. If the allegations against Luis Suarez and John Terry are proved, then they crossed that line.

 

The danger with Blatter's comments -- and even more so with Gus Poyet's comments that Patrice Evra was "crying like a baby" -- is that players will feel they must put up with racist abuse if they want to be considered a man in a football world which has many spurious notions of manliness.

 

Suarez has acknowledged saying something -- "I called him something his team-mates at Manchester call him" -- and the case will hinge on what it was, what was meant by it and how it was perceived.

 

Reports last week said that Liverpool feel Suarez has been charged because of this admission. It may be that for telling the truth in a world full of liars Suarez has to go before the FA or it could be proved that he said much, much worse.

 

These are matters with the most profound consequences. Blatter's abysmal intervention demonstrated only the damage he has done to football.

 

dfanning@independent.ie

[Rimbeux]

Did anyone in any great numbers call Blatter a racist, or is it a straw man?

[aka Dus]

Did anyone in any great numbers call Blatter a racist, or is it a straw man?

 

I think a lot of people subconsciously conclude that 'not getting the issues' of racism in football implies a certain amount of latent racism on the behalf of Sepptic. Sepptic too, what with all the pictures of himself and his black chums being put out.

[Rimbeux]

I think a lot of people subconsciously conclude that 'not getting the issues' of racism in football implies a certain amount of latent racism on the behalf of Sepptic. Sepptic too, what with all the pictures of himself and his black chums being put out.

 

I just think it's an odd assumption to come to given what he said, all it implies, to me at least, is a huge amount of complacency. It probably suits him just fine to defend himself against claims of racism instead of being questioned on fitness to do the job.

[aka Dus]

I just think it's an odd assumption to come to given what he said, all it implies, to me at least, is a huge amount of complacency. It probably suits him just fine to defend himself against claims of racism instead of being questioned on fitness to do the job.

 

But isn't that Dion's point?