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.