FIFA: Sepp Blatter Thinks There Is No Racism on the Field. He Is Clearly Insane.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has put his foot in his mouth today, doing several interviews where he downplayed racism in his sport.

In the video below, Blatter told Al Jazeera that racism on the field can be "forgotten" after the match.

That sounds pretty crazy, but not as crazy as this: Blatter also talked with Pedro Pinto of CNN who asked the FIFA President about racism on the pitch, wondering if the head of the governing body of international soccer thinks his sport has a problem.

"

"I would deny it. There is no racism. There is, maybe, one of the players toward the other, he has a word or a gesture that is not the correct one. But also the one who is affected by that, he should say, "it's a game. We are in the game. At the end of the game we shake hands, this can happen."

"

Let's parse through this statement a little bit, just to get a true sense of Blatter's complete lack of understanding of what racism is. First, Blatter "would deny it," claiming that "there is no racism." In the next breath, Blatter explains why there is no racism; because he doesn't think that a racist word "or a gesture that is not the correct one" on the field of play should be considered racism.

So racism is racism, except when it's during a game because, well, "this can happen."

In other words, when racism happens in the stands – a huge problem in international soccer for years – it's a serious issue and shouldn't be ignored. When fans yell and throw things at a player of color…that is a real issue for the sport. But when another player does it, that's simply part of the spirit of the game.

Shake hands, fellas. This can happen, as we're told.

If the head of FIFA is doing international interviews where he inexplicably admits he's willing to look past acts of racism on the pitch – tacitly approving those acts as merely part of the emotions of the game – what's stopping players from taking it a step further? What's stopping players from throwing a few extra elbows on 50-50 balls in the air?

"Oh, you are black? You know, it's funny, because I didn't even realize that as I was yelling ethnic slurs at you just before that header. All part of the game. Shake on it?"

Obviously, the worst part of Blatter's insanity – and something he clearly didn't take into consideration when making the comments – is that people will hear what the head of FIFA said and think anything goes in the heat of the game. It's suddenly okay to say and do whatever you want during a match.

If the players on the pitch, in the heat of the moment, can say what they want (so long as they shake hands afterwards), what's stopping fans from making threats during the match as well, (so long as they don't actually go through with them)?

The fans are almost as heated and passionate during a match as the players, so if Blatter is saying it's not racist for a player to be racist during the game, then it's certainly not racist for the fans.

Hey, we can even take that a step further. If John Terry allegedly used a racial slur toward Anton Ferdinand, what's stopping any Chelsea fan from walking around North London throwing slurs at someone in a QPR kit? It's not racist, as long as they shake hands after the fact.

This is insane. There is no other way to explain it.