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10 years of FIF
Most Important Member- Blatter Batters The Big-Budget Boys
10/12/2005 1:19:00 PM
FIFA president Sepp Blatter launched a blistering attack on some of the wealthy club owners who he claims are threatening the future of football.
In a remarkable broadside published in the Financial Times, Blatter vows to stop "greed ruling the world of football," claiming that the "pornographic amounts of money" being bandied around by some hugely rich club owners could suffocate the sport.
Blatter said: "A fortunate few clubs are richer than ever before. What makes this a matter of concern is that, all too often, the source of this wealth is individuals with little or no history of interest in the game, who have happened upon football as a means of serving some hidden agenda.
"Having set foot in the sport seemingly out of nowhere, they proceed to throw pornographic amounts of money at it. What they do not understand is that football is more about grass-roots than idols; more about giving entertainment and hope to the many than bogus popularity to a predictable few; more about respecting others than sating individual greed, whether for adulation or money."
Blatter goes on to declare that a new FIFA task force set up to deal with corruption and multiple ownership issues within football will deal with the excesses.
He adds: "This cannot be the future of our game. FIFA cannot sit by and see greed rule the football world. Nor shall we.
"The time has come to take action to curb the excesses and ensure that the sport protects its roots.
"If nothing is done, this new money could suffocate a sport that has no fewer than 1.3 billion active followers around the world.
"The professional game is now shot through with practices that, at best, expose the ugly side of club football and, at worst, threaten its very existence."
Th FIFA president condemns the practice, in South America especially, of speculators buying the commercial rights to promising child players as an unacceptable "new form of slavery."
He also attacks players and agents for demanding "insane" wages, saying: "Equally unacceptable are the sort of wage negotiations that can produce the spectacle of semi-educated, sometimes foul-mouthed, players on £100,000 a week holding clubs to ransom until they get, say, £120,000.
"More often than not, these players are guided in these endeavours by unsavoury agents.
"It is simply insane for any player to 'earn' £6 million-£8 million a year when the annual budget of even a club competing in the Uefa Champions League may be less than half that. What logic, right or economic necessity would qualify a man in his mid-20s to demand to earn in a month a sum that his own father - and the majority of fans - could not hope to earn in a decade?"
Another prime target for Blatter is the influx of mega-wealthy owners, whose wealth he blames for making football too predictable.
"Unlimited cash has given a handful of club owners the wherewithal to control the global club game by splashing unimaginable sums on a tiny group of elite players. More than ever before, the majority are fighting with spears, while the greedy few have the financial equivalent of nuclear warheads.
"No wonder empty seats in stadiums and saturation live television coverage of matches have become issues. What is interesting about a league whose champions can be predicted with confidence after about five games?
"Why is it good for football to take the excitement away from fans by overcharging them for tickets to see 'their' team? And is it really still 'their' team when one club in England has a squad with 19 nationalities?
"What we are faced with today is a football society of haves and have nots."
(Goal.com)
).Since Blatter is the head of the most powerful football organizations, he should lead by example, starting by eradicating pointless friendlies and competitions. Only then, he'd have walk the walk, and not just talk the talk.
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