ONCE UPON a time there was a column and the column said that Sepp Blatter was a big, fat bundle of hot air when it came to the issue of stamping out racism.
Then there was a phone call. The big, fat bundle of hot air requested a meeting with the column to talk about his hurt, his pain, his horror at being branded a blowhard in the battle with the racists. We met in Berlin. Sepp was wounded by my words, s
hocked that I could doubt his sincerity and his passion to rid the game of the greatest cancer of all. I was shocked that he'd noticed. But there you go. Sepp has eyes in many places, alas, all of them remaining shut to bigotry in football.
What we had last week was typical FIFA and typical UEFA, where Blatter's Mini-Me figure (Michel Platini) is coming along nicely in his role as the game's second most aimless leader. Blatter and Platini made portentous statements about the finances of football, banging on about rising debt in the English Premier League, foreign ownership and the threat to the soul of the game while at the same time ignoring another debate about racism. They're perfectly entitled to make these observations about football finance. In some cases their cautionary words are well-placed. The only thing is that regardless of their lofty titles, Blatter and Platini are wasting their breath.
If every Premiership club gets bought over by foreign billionaires there is not a lot FIFA and UEFA can do about it. If these billionaires decide to pack their teams with non-English players there's not a lot FIFA and UEFA can do about that either. For years, Blatter has been talking about limiting the number of foreign players clubs are allowed to select. It's been his big idea. His mantra. He's getting nowhere. The behemoths of the game are laughing at him. But Sepp continues to campaign for something that he has no hope of achieving instead of concentrating his mind on something he can achieve, given the will. Namely, punishing the racists in football.
Last week he, and Platini, side-stepped the latest discussion on the abuse of black footballers. Rio Ferdinand and Emile Heskey started the debate when they spoke about their awful experience at the hands of Neanderthal Croatians last month, sustained abuse that saw FIFA hand down a risible £15,000 fine. "FIFA make comments about what they will do but never back it up with actions," said Ferdinand on Wednesday. "The football authorities need to take a look at themselves. Croatia were fined a few thousand quid. What's that going to do? That is not going to stop people shouting racist or homophobic abuse. Sepp Blatter likes to speak up about things that are good for FIFA's image but I would love to see them stand up and dish out the right punishments for these incidents."
Heskey said that FIFA were not backing up their words with action. That's the understatement of the year. Blatter said seven years ago at a football summit in Argentina that the game's tolerance of racism was officially over. It stopped there and then. Any country found guilty from that point on would be deducted points or thrown out of competitions. "Now we have to prove that we mean what we say." For his hard line he won the applause of Kofi Annan and Pele, yet nothing changed. Nothing. In fact, it got worse. The chants kept coming and the fines (if they were dished out at all) became ever more pathetic.
On the eve of the 2006 World Cup, Blatter grandstanded again. Get this: "More than the sword of Damocles is hanging over them," he said of national associations whose supporters continued to cause a problem. "This is the end of non-compliance with what our society is asking football to do."
More than the sword of Damocles? Not exactly. Here's the horrible hypocrisy of FIFA at play. Racism is pervasive in football but the sword of Damocles has yet to be seen. What we see instead is Blatter and Platini busying themselves with football finance and club ownership, subjects they have no control over. Their reaction to Ferdinand and Heskey was a predictable embarrassment. "FIFA and president Joseph Blatter take the fight against racism in football very seriously. FIFA not only speaks very clearly about this issue, but carries out several campaigns and projects." What campaigns? What projects?
You could almost see Platini nodding his support, for this is the man who made this contribution to the subject last August: "Football owes itself to be an example in our societies. Football must teach values to Europe – honesty, courage, fraternity, tolerance and peace. Football includes, integrates, and welcomes. It excludes no one, it discriminates against no one, it persecutes no one. The battle that we have undertaken against racism and discrimination is a combat which will only stop when these phenomena have disappeared from our stadiums."
What battle? In Platini's world does a £15,000 fine constitute a response to the bigots? Does he think that's good enough? So much garbage from the leading administrators of European and world football.
You wonder sometimes if language like Blatter's supposed sword of Damocles and Platini's take on football as an honest, courageous fraternity that welcomes everyone and excludes no one is almost as offensive as the monkey chants in the stadiums these two guys are supposed to police.
Blatter and Platini should spend a little more time thinking about the things they can change in the game and a little less time on things they cannot. And while they're at it, they can stop insulting people's intelligence. Telling Ferdinand and Heskey and the dozens upon dozens of other players who will be racially abused this season that there's a campaign in place to rid the game of the bigots is only making a bad situation a whole lot worse.
It's cruel to be kind for all the wrong reasonsSIR David Murray says Rangers fans should stop reading newspapers if they want to avoid criticism of their club.
The reality, of course, is that Rangers fans (an element of them at any rate) read newspapers for the express purpose of finding criticism of their club, criticism they can rail against, criticism they can pass on to their mates on forums and get all indignant about.
Some of them go out of their way to find criticism. In fact, some of the interpretations these people put on the most innocuous things can be part psychotic and part genius.
I got an e-mail from one of them not long ago, claiming that I was writing nice things about Rangers deliberately and "disgracefully" just so I could really put the boot in when they next lost a game. Apparently, you could tell through my complimentary words that I was actually really hurting that Rangers were top of the league.
What imaginations these guys have. It's a strange form of brilliance in my view.
The full article contains 1196 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
