Sii 2007: Blatter Admits Lack Of ‘attention’ Over Visa

Speaking at the Sport Industry Interview 2007, FIFA president Sepp Blatter
admitted that the governing body had not conducted its dealings with Visa and
MasterCard with ‘the right attention’ – the first admission of wrongdoing made
over the incident.

A US court ruled that FIFA had acted illegally in courting and signing up
Visa regarding a £150m World Cup sponsorship deal post-2006 without giving
incumbent sponsor MasterCard first refusal. FIFA is currently appealing against
the decision.

Despite making the admission, Blatter defended the governing body’s image in
the wake of the ongoing row stating: ‘You cannot isolate one contract from
hundreds that are massively successful. It’s one contract that was not done with
the right attention but the case isn’t finished. Let’s wait and see what the
court rules but it certainly won’t impact on present or future sponsorships.’

Blatter did confess that he was not ‘comfortable’ with the situation with
Visa and MasterCard moving forward given that FIFA will ‘have to work with one
of the two’ once the legal proceedings have been wrapped up. He stated that,
given the year lost during the ongoing court case, an extra year would be added
to the contract once a conclusion is reached.

In a wide ranging discussion, Blatter also defended FIFA’s stance on fair
play when quizzed by interviewer John Inverdale as to whether it was doing
enough to promote fair play in the wake of the player brawl at the recent
Carling Cup final and Zinedine Zidane’s infamous ‘head butt’ at last year’s
World Cup final.

‘Footballers should behave with a sporting spirit but there are situations
where it doesn’t happen,’ he explained. ‘I have always promoted fair play but
they are not all angels. When they behave badly they are punished but how can
you expect every footballer to behave when society as a whole doesn’t behave. We
can only be as good as the society around us.’

The 2007 Sport Industry Interview, in association with Wiggin LLP, took place
at the Bloomberg Studios in Central London.

In front of a select, invite-only audience of 250 leading practitioners from
the UK sport industry including the likes of FA chief executive Brian Barwick
and FA Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards, the FIFA president was
interviewed on a variety of football topics.