Blatter Gets It Right Twice In One Day

I’m not a fan of Sepp Blatter (head of FIFA, the world governing body for football, or soccer as it is called in one or two countries). I don’t like the way the World Cup has evolved during his reign (including the awarding of the last tournament to Germany instead of South Africa and South America has not hosting the tournament since 1978). I thought the way he meddled in the referee-ing over the summer was risable. Moreover, meaningless competitions like the conferations cup and the world club tournament are bad for the game.

However, he hit the mark today with two comments.

First, he is saying the final of the World Cup should not be decided on penalties. I agree, after all, I was saying the same thing after the dire final to the 1994 tournament. The problem and the proposals are not new, it just needs the decisiveness to make it happen.

I like the idea of removing players in a golden goal situation, or playing with no offside. However, both could end in a farce. Why not have a replay?

Second, Blatter has openly admitted that the pay many footballers receive is immoral. I don’t tend to like critising high pay, but there is something wrong with the pay levels for top footballers, or to put it another way, something wrong with the pay that goes to average professional footballers and squad fillers.

But again the question comes back to what, if anything, FIFA will do.

[tags] Sepp Blatter, FIFA [/tags]