Why Sepp Blatter Is Football's Most Influential Person

On May 26 Sepp Blatter arrived at MFA House—the Trianon-based headquarters of the Mauritius Football Association.

The FIFA president had travelled to the Indian Ocean island nation for the 63rd Congress of world football’s governing body, and after inaugurating a playing field, planting a tree and comparing football to a family—one of his favourite mantras—he was whisked away in his motorcade.

Only, the compound he left was no longer MFA House.

Since a riot on the final day of the 1999 season led to a government-imposed 18-month ban on most footballing activity in Mauritius, FIFA has been pouring money into the country through its Goal series of projects. And to thank its president, the MFA renamed its head office “Sepp Blatter Football House” in his honour.

Eight days later, as he addressed the Congress gathered at the InterContinental Hotel in Port Louis, Blatter made sure to acknowledge his hosts in one of those extended metaphors he seems to fancy.

“We have emerged from the troubled waters stronger and now we can look to the future and waters as calm as the beautiful sea around us in Mauritius,” he said of FIFA’s recent period of unrest. “And,” he added, “I think the boat can now go slowly into the harbour.” (h/t BBC)

Perhaps the most appropriate thing about the metaphor is that, just last month, MFA president Diannanathlall Persunnoo was alleged by a BBC investigation to have been involved in a match-fixing scheme. Persunnoo challenged the validity of the report, but if anything the allegations only brought him closer to his FIFA counterpart—a man who, himself, has been no stranger to accusations of corruption.

Calm waters, indeed.

Clumsy

Since successive World Cup tournaments were awarded to Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) nearly three years ago, 12 members of FIFA’s executive committee have faced accusations of corruption, and four of them—Chuck Blazer, Nicolas Leoz, Ricardo Teixeira and Jack Warmer—have since resigned.

A fifth—Mohammed bin Hamman, who had attempted to run against Blatter during the last FIFA elections—has been banned from football for life.

Blatter, for his part, has managed to remain in the sport’s top job, and while a subsequent report filed by FIFA Ethics Committee chairman Hans Joachim Eckert described the actions of former Brazilian Football Confederation president Teixeira and his father-in-law, the long-time FIFA president Joao Havelange, as “morally and ethically reproachable,” Blatter was let off with the insulting, albeit non-criminal, description of “clumsy," as the Guardian noted.

“Clumsy” is a word that fits Blatter like a perfectly tailored suit. For even if activity of questionable legality was, in fact, happening under his nose (“lurid tales of brown envelopes stuffed with cash,” as the Guardian describes it), when you listen to him you can almost believe he well and truly knew nothing about any of it.

Take his May 29 address to FIFA delegates as an example.

With four candidates campaigning to become the executive committee’s first permanent female member, Blatter singled out one of them—Australia’s Moya Dodd, the Asia Football Confederation vice-president—as “a good candidate, and a good-looking candidate.”

“I can tell you she’s good—she’s very good,” he added. “So good luck.”

It’s precisely that sort of comment—a foot-in-mouth remark about a positive, progressive initiative, in this case the involvement of women at the highest level of football governance—that inspires so much derision among Blatter’s detractors.

And, if not derision, then outright contempt.

To its credit, FIFA has been working hard to stamp out racism and discrimination in football, but in 2010 Blatter managed to set his organization’s campaign back a generation when, having been asked about gay fans at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where homosexuality is outlawed, he replied (as reported by the BBC), “I’d say they should refrain from any sexual activities.”

He apologized shortly thereafter following a public backlash, but once again the FIFA president had generated headlines for all the wrong reasons.

As holder of world football’s highest office, Blatter is, by extension, the most powerful man in the sport. And with that power inevitably comes scrutiny, criticism, praise and everything else illuminated by the public spotlight.

No character in the game—no player, no former player, no manager—inspires the same range of reaction as does the 77-year-old; no individual holds as much sway over football’s future as he.

Powerful

Sepp Blatter is the most powerful person in sport.

As he has often pointed out, the organization he commands includes 209 members—16 more than the United Nations—and in those where football is followed religiously, he almost functions as a sort of Pope, a ruler whose edicts have influence on the national conversation.

He is photographed more often with heads of state than with players, and he holds in his generosity the awarding of the world’s most iconic social gathering: the FIFA World Cup.

Of course, he doesn’t select a host out of whimsy. Politics, at least in developed societies, have moved beyond rule by the stroke of a pen.

But he, more than anyone else, establishes the agenda, and if that agenda includes the process by which host nations are determined (as it did in Mauritius) it’s safe to assume he signed off on the idea. (The full agenda for the 63rd FIFA Congress can be found here.)

One doesn’t have to be a dictator to exercise power; they merely have to determine the programme. The rest will fall into place.

Naturally, such power can be addictive, and it’s when a ruler refuses to relinquish that power that things tend to get dictatorial. Blatter, currently serving his fourth term as FIFA president, was widely expected to step down after next year’s World Cup, but has lately been hinting at a fifth go-around in the job.

The BBC recently asked presumed 2015 candidate Michel Platini about Blatter’s plans, to which the current UEFA boss merely smiled and said, “Ask him.”