Better Late Than Never: FIFA Awards Medals 77 Years Late
By: Laurie | November 25th, 2007In a rare show of intelligence from FIFA, Sepp Blatter announced today that the 122 members of World Cup-winning squads from 1930 to 1974 who did not play in the final game would be awarded medals for being part of the winning teams.
I’m sure that this will come as excellent news to all of those players who are, y’know, dead.
But let’s not quibble over details. Let’s be glad that FIFA has now decided to retroactively apply the Olympic model and award medals to all players, regardless of whether or not they took the field in the final game, a rule that has been in place for current teams since the 1978 World Cup.
The new rule applies to players like Pele, who will finally get an award for the Brazilian victory in the 1962 World Cup final, which he missed due to injury.
Blatter conceded that although many of the older players have either long since disappeared from football or died, their families would be awarded the medal on their behalf. He said he hoped the task of tracking down all the players or their families would be completed within the next 12 months.
“It is justice that the players should get medals now,” he said. “We are going back into the archives to find all the players, and where they have died, we will try and find their families. We might not be able to reproduce the exact medals, but they will be awarded medals for being part of the squad that won the World Cup,” Blatter said.
Yea, Sepp. Keep this up and people might just start considering you competent.
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