Blatter suggested, in an interview broadcast by CNN on Wednesday, that players who are subjected to racial abuse in a game should just shake hands with their opponent after the game.The issue has been prominent in the English sporting media recently, with the Liverpool winger Luis Suarez charged with using racist language towards Manchester United's Patrice Evra and the England and Chelsea captain John Terry under police investigation for using similar language towards QPR's Anton Ferdinand.
"There is no racism, there is maybe one of the players towards another, he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one. But also the one who is affected by that, he should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen, because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination." - Sepp BlatterRio Ferdinand, the former England captain and older brother of Rio, led calls for Blatter to resign via his Twitter account."To say what you said about racism in football spoke volumes of your ignorance to the subject," he wrote in comments directed to Blatter's Twitter account."If we want to stamp out racism in society a football pitch is a good place to start-loved by billions of people around the world."The Premier League said "everybody in the game in England understands any form of racism is totally unacceptable", although they fell way short of criticising Blatter and did not even mention him by name.Influential people in British sport including sports minister Hugh Robertson and players' chief Gordon Taylor called for Blatter to step down.Outside of Britain however, the comments barely caused a ripple. It merited a single paragraph in French sports daily L'Equipe, and was treated similarly in Spain, Italy, Germany and the United States.According to a number of people with experience of Fifa politics, Blatter is now inured to having a rough ride in Britain after the FA opposed his election in June, and following the furore over the ban on poppies on England and Wales shirts last week."This is of course a big issue in England where there are high-profile racism cases going on, but the rest of Europe has not shown any interest and Blatter can just brush it off," the Press Association quoted one member as saying.There was some interest outside of the United Kingdom, with the former England and Manchester United forward Andrew Cole using his column for The National, a newspaper based in Abu Dhabi and ultimately owned by the Al Mansour family who also own Manchester City, to criticise Blatter. "I don't know one black player who could comprehend what Blatter is trying to say. I personally find it very offensive," he said ."Does he really think that it's OK for a player to accept abuse because of the colour of his skin and then almost laugh it off? Just put it down to the heat of the moment? Maybe he wants players subjected to racist chants to go and applaud those "fans" at the end of the games too."Blatter is clueless and his comments undermine all the good work that the game's authorities have done to try to eradicate racism. His opinions were formed in a bygone era and his attitude is reflected in the tiny fines which Fifa gives to countries whose fans have been found guilty of being racist during a game."Blatter has long attracted headlines after making comments that were at best ill-advised.In 2004 he suggested women's football would attract more interest if the players wore "tighter shorts", and he apologised after joking about the illegality of homoesxuality in the 2022 World Cup host nation Qatar.He has also previously suggested splitting matches into four time periods rather than two halves, and said he wanted to ban the possibility of a drawn match.
Source: FOOTYMAD
