11 July 2000 – Blatter backs World Cup rotation plan
12 October 2007 – Sepp Blatter … wants to ditch Fifa’s controversial [rotation] selection policy
Yes – Sepp Blatter, the man who runs FIFA as his own personal fiefdom (sorry), has had something of a volte face and now wants to scrap the rotation system that means that each regional confederation (effectively continents) gets to run a World Cup tournament in turn.
South Africa is the next host in 2010 (and they’ve got a contingency plan), and now only Brazil in South America has shown any interest in the 2014 tournament. This means that there’s no chance for FIFA to maximise revenues when there’s no competition.
Blatter probably also realised that including Europe more frequently in the system will mean that television revenues will be significantly enhanced. Games at unsociable hours in Europe simply don’t earn the cash that games that take place in time for evenings do.
The media’s jumped on the fact that suddenly England would be able to bid for the 2018 World Cup. But Blatter does seem to have a history of telling people what they want to hear. Every time he comes to Britain to give an interview, it’s nothing but positive news.
And let’s not forget that he’s constantly full of “great” ideas:
Play European football through the summer (quite how the World Cup would fit into that scheme is unclear).
Ban games at high altitude (you’re kind of screwed if your country happens to be at high altitude)
Limit overseas players (he’s not on his own on this one, but there are EU laws against this kind of discrimination making it a non-starter)
Ban the singing of national anthems
And most famously of all “Fifa president Sepp Blatter has urged women footballers to wear skimpier kits to increase the popularity of the women’s game”.
“Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,” said the Fifa chief.
“They could, for example, have tighter shorts.”
Blatter added: “Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men – such as playing with a lighter ball.
“That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?”