Dr. Sepp Blatter: Football is Ill

By: Bob | March 23rd, 2007

When you read a headline in which FIFA head honcho Sepp Blatter proclaims that “football is ill” you can interpret it a couple of ways. You can see it as the Seppster’s attempt to reach out to young people by calling the sport ill, as in hip, cool, awesome, or peachy keen. Or you can interpret it as another bellyache from the bloated belly of the man who seemingly runs a sport that he loves to hate.

Coming out of his undisclosed cave for his monthly appearance in front of the cameras and microphones, Dr. Sepp pulled another one from his medical buzzkill bag by diagnosing the sport as being sick. His logic, as always, is fascinating:

‘We have come to a crossroads of football, our football is ill. I see more and more financial interests over-riding people in club football especially. Even rich countries they are not capable of providing safe and comfortable stadia and I see that violence is everywhere, including inside the stadia.

‘When you see what happened recently in big stadia, in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, when highly-paid players got involved in fights, which was nothing compared to what we saw later in Valencia.

‘There are many other examples I could mention. Where is football leading to if players are now at each others’ throats. What will people think if they see on TV these pictures of major football matches.

‘We must act, and we will raise this at FIFA’s next congress.’

I’m willing to grant Sepp the point about fan violence at stadia. I see this as a problem that continues to blight the sport. It is a problem that involves many components including FIFA’s willingness to turn a blind eye to it all. They have for years.

The part of his argument that is less compelling, however, is the notion that financial interests are leading to violence amongst the players and that this is bad for the sport. The fight between Arsenal and Chelsea didn’t occur because the players are highly paid. The fight between Inter Milan and Valencia has nothing to do with money or the current state of the sport. Big money or no money there is not an epidemic of violence happening in football today. Fights have always taken place. The difference is that these are high profile instances and, frankly, I don’t see that as a bad thing. No one wants to see football turned into boxing, but the fact is that fights and controversies do as much to generate interest as do amazing goals and thrilling games. People are still talking about Zidane’s World Cup headbutt half a year after it took place.

The sport of football is not perfect but it is also not ill unless you mean that it is rad, amazing or the fucking best. It is too bad the people who run it seem to be the ones who hate it the most.