Where is Sepp Blatter? Not a question you tend to hear too often, largely because nobody generally cares, but do you not find it just a touch strange that, more than a day after Thierry Henry took his place alongside Diego Maradona in football’s Hall of Shame, old Sepp has failed to utter a single word in public about the story that is consuming football?
The Fifa president is a smart politician, despite what his critics may say, but his previously unmatched ability to capitalise on a story with his own brand of scene-stealing appears to have escaped him.
Ireland is a state of meltdown over Henry’s underhand intervention in Wednesday’s World Cup play-off in Paris, which proved the decisive moment in the elimination of the Irish.
The French nation has reacted with disdain at Henry’s actions, which have brought shame on one of the world’s most powerful states.Le Hand of God has now gone global – both in a sporting sense and politically. Irish PM Brian Cowen has become involved by admitting he will seek out Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, at this week’s EU summit in Brussels.
All we are waiting for now is Barack Obama to issue his own missive from the Oval Office. Maybe that’s what will settle it. If Obama demands a replay, then it should be a done deal.
He apparently has Irish ancestry, so the Irish claim anyway, and as a man who made his political name in Chicago, a city built by Irish immigrants, he will only be voting one way. Maybe that is what Blatter is waiting for – a sense of which way the wind is blowing at the White House.
All of this is obviously ridiculous, but there has to be some explanation for Blatter’s reticence. After all, he doesn’t usually bite his lip when football is tearing itself apart over one issue or another. He compared Cristiano Ronaldo’s battle to escape Manchester United 18 months ago to the slave trade. He has spouted forth on diving, video technology, refereeing standards for years. But where is he now?
Do a Google news search of Blatter and there is nothing, other than links to condemnatory comments by the likes of Robbie Keane since Wednesday. Blatter’s most recent public pronouncement came on Monday with his defence of Fifa’s decision to stage the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria. Nothing like addressing the big issues then.
But Blatter can’t win on this one. Back Irish calls for a replay and he opens a can of worms that leaves the door open for every bad decision to be contested in such a manner in future. Back the French and he immediately finds himself aligned with a cheat’s charter, contradicting Fifa’s much-vaunted Fair Play ethos. But he cannot stay quiet forever. Something has to give. And for once, the world is waiting for Sepp Blatter to tell it as it is.