Nigeria: FIFA Don’t Need Revolution, We Need Consolidation And, Specifically, Stability- Blatter

21 May 2011

interview

DID your visit to Palestine this past weekend have an election campaign element?

I did not speak one word in terms of campaigning. I came to Palestine because this visit was programmed some time back so I could launch one project and perform the stone-laying ceremony of another.

However I could not come for the opening of the women’s league two months ago and so it had to be now for the opening of this first international club competition in Palestine. I was not campaigning here. In any case, it would have been a bit late!

But are you aware that Mohamed Bin Hammam came here one month ago?

OK, but he is a candidate. I am the president.

Will this really be your last term as president?

If I am re-elected it’s for my last term. Then I will have to stop. I have announced it will be my last term.

When do you expect FIFA to approve new technology at the highest levels?

Firstly, it is only goal-line technology which is in discussion. With the international board we are in the process of testing technology and there will be a new presentation at the board meeting in London in March 2012.

If it works, and the board decides that goal-line technology can be introduced, then FIFA will introduce it for the World Cup 2014. Other leagues and organisations could use this technology once it has been accepted by the board – but only goal-line technology.

It’s been suggested that FIFA needs a revolution. Do you agree?

We don’t need a revolution and I will tell you why. What we need now in FIFA is to maintain our game in good order so that, in such a perturbed world, this game of football which is based on discipline, respect and fairplay can strengthen our society. That’s why we don’t need revolution we need consolidation and, specifically, stability. Evolution not revolution.

One of these evolutions – and it is in the Congress agenda, which we have just made – is a very important point which is zero tolerance.

This means more than only on the field of play but beyond the field of play. I have already announced in these past weeks that we are reinforcing our systems of control: we are giving a more important role, specifically, to the ethics committee and we have started to work together with Interpol to fight against match-fixing and against illegal betting.

Knowing that this comes, especially, from Asia and the centre in Singapore, we have put an office in Singapore not because the devil is coming from there, it’s just that the Singapore authorities, when it comes to anti-corruption, are the No1 in the world so we just have to have the office there. I spoke to the government there and they are happy for us to do so.

In addition, compliance and corporate governance will all be included in this zero tolerance but we are already on the verge of restoring the image of FIFA.

I can only repeat it: I am the president of FIFA, elected by Congress, all the other members of my committee of the government of FIFA, are not been elected by the same entity.

What was your initial response to last week’s allegations about the World Cup bid process?

Repeatedly it is always said there is some corruption here and there but I don’t understand why, last autumn – after the Sunday Times allegations and the evidence we had been given and we had started the big activity with the ethics committee – did the FA in London not give us all the matters they are giving now, months later?

At that time it would have been very easy to put everything together. We dealt with that but now there are other allegations so we have opened an investigation.

Now, however, I must say also thank you to the FA for helping us because we must have the evidence of the allegations from the former chairman of the FA and also from the newspaper. We have received letters but there is no evidence.

There is a principle which says you are innocent until declared guilty but naturally, it’s not a good image when we are heading for an election.

So I have given notice – and we will do it – that these matters must be solved before Congress on May 30 and June 1. I will not open Congress without these matters having been solved; when there is an emergency matter then emergency decisions or actions must be taken. I am sure that we will do it before Congress. It’s a question of will.

As not only president of FIFA but also an IOC member, do you think this is comparable with the Olympic movement’s Salt Lake scandal?

The problem is that football is a game . . . with players who may pull a shirt or kick a leg and football is universal so it touches everybody. But when there was a problem in the IOC, the region where it has happened was in the United States and it did not have the same international coverage as football when you consider the worldwide popularity of the game.

Were you surprised that Mohamed Bin Hammam decided to run for president?

Sure I was surprised because he has always said that he will not run and especially not run against me, but I am very confident about going forward with the national associations.

I cannot see that the 208 FAs, or a majority of them, will suddenly abandon the direction they have given themselves when we set the new statutes in 2004 in Paris. As for the pyramid organisation of FIFA, if you change it, if you say that the confederations should take the lead, where is the universality? Ask the players’ union, FIFpro, what they think about that.

The year FIFA was founded in 1904 there were the laws of the game, the refereeing, the organisation of international matches and already transfers.

How can you now put (regulating) transfers on confederation level as well as all the organisation of the international competitions? If you give all this to the confederations then who will be in charge of FIFA? That confederation will be the one that is the most powerful and I don’t think the majority of the national associations would agree to vote for such a direction.

This is my belief and if Congress is of the opinion that we should change something then it should be done according to our statutes and regulations: OK, then let’s take the time, let’s have a special commission to go into it, as we have done in the past in 1946, 1961 and then in 2003 and 2004 when there was something to change.

Mohamed Bin Hammam has had some harsh words for the way you run FIFA. Do you have any response?

I don’t do that because everybody has the right to say what he wants but he has been longer than me in the executive committee so he was one of those who have brought FIFA where it is.

He is also a member of the finance committee, so it’s a bit surprising (for me] because he was already a prominent man as chairman of the Asian Football Confederation which is so powerful judged by the number of members (53).

I only say what a head of state said to me: ‘It’s a bit surprising that a 60-year-old should be telling a 70-year-old that he is too old.’

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