NOT the Man of the Day: Sepp Blatter

Sepp Blatter is an unethical and corrupt man with much power and influence on the world sporting stage. This little Swiss man is the much-reviled President of FIFA, the world governing body for football, the Beautiful Game.

And he is most certainly NOT my Man of the Day.

I have total contempt for this man given that under his tutelage FIFA has simply gone from bad to worse. His predecessor, the Brazilian Joao Havelange, was no angel. In fact, Havelange set the stage and the momentum for FIFA becoming the insanely corrupt and greedy organization that it has now become. That was one big, corrupt swine of a man. The seemingly innocuous and 'pleasant' Sepp Blatter seemed to be a breath of fresh air when he took office in 1998, but that notion was very short-lived. The man puts even Havelange to shame. And that's stiff competition.

The man seems to attract scandal like George W. Bush attracts contempt. His tenure at the head of FIFA has been rife with allegations of corruption and backroom dealings, including:

- His 2008 election in which he beat Lennart Johansson, the Swedish and much-respected and, initially, favoured head of the European football federation, UEFA, is mired in allegations (and much evidence, by the  way) of election rigging, vote-buying and even false delegates at the election (i.e. the absent delegate from Haiti having a woman who happened to be a mate of the head of the CONCACAF federation, and huge Blatter supporter, stand in to vote as the Haitian 'proxy'!)

- His 2002 election mired by even more election-rigging and vote-buying allegations. Yet again, the Haitian delegate was not present, this time with the French-speaking nation 'represented' at the election conference by none other than a delegate with a decidedly Jamaican accent!)

- Ditto more allegations at the 2006 election.

- Head of a FIFA that is anathema to its slogan of 'Fair Play for a Fair Game' when it comes to its own business dealings. FIFA is today the very embodiment of unfair play in the way it extorts money for copyrights during a World Cup, with the upcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa its most extreme and disgusting display of monopolistic, Mafia-style flexing of its corporatist brand clout. There are countless other examples of just how corrupt and unethical FIFA is in many of its dealings. And Sepp Blatter is centre stage every step of the way.

It is only fitting that I revile this man in my blog on the eve of the World Cup in South Africa. After all, his falsely benign, even beatific visage is going to be splashed all over our screens and newspaper and online print for weeks to come. It's the very least I could do against the corrupt little weasel. A weasel of a man who was the leading force in the collusion of FIFA with the super-corrupt and super-rich elite of this country in making sure that they all pocketed the biggest profits to be made from the country playing host.

World football deserves so much better than this man of little stature, both physical and moral.

Sepp Blatter is the epitome of everything I deplore about Switzerland and the Swiss - a smug little nation made of rude, smug people which parades its 'squeaky clean', super-efficient facade before the world as if it were superior to everyone else. Yet, just like Herr Blatter, it hides its true self - secretive, corrupt and full of skeletons in its gilded closet.

Herr Blatter looks decidedly drawn and worried in the picture of him in this post. So he should be - the contemptible little man that yields way too much power and influence that he is.