{"id":19192,"date":"2015-05-29T09:46:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T07:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=19192"},"modified":"2015-05-29T09:46:48","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T07:46:48","slug":"blatter-understands-new-world-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=19192","title":{"rendered":"Blatter understands New World Order"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifa boss understood <\/a>very early that there\u2019s a new world order in which westerners don\u2019t matter much, writes Simon Kuper in the FT.<\/p>\n

Blatter knows which of the soccer nations have money, and that is why he will be re-elected. <\/p>\n

In the 19th century, it was the British, later Americans, then Russians and currently Gulf Arabs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why on Friday he will be re-elected to his fifth term as president of Fifa, the corrupt global football authority. Western countries rightly decry Blatter. However, we ought to recognise his genius. This 79-year-old understood very early that there\u2019s a new world order in which westerners don\u2019t matter much.<\/p>\n

I only realised how deluded most of us westerners were on December 2 2010. That afternoon Fifa\u2019s executive committee (Exco) chose Russia to host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar to stage the 2022 tournament. I had followed the bidding campaigns for years. I had had many off-the-record conversations with western bidders. A few had predicted Russia\u2019s victory. Almost nobody foresaw Qatar\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Writing in the Financial Times before the vote, I chastised bookmakers William Hill for making Qatar runaway favourites. Hadn\u2019t Fifa\u2019s own evaluation report called Qatar\u2019s extreme heat \u201ca potential health risk for players, officials, the Fifa family and spectators\u201d? I tipped Russia and the US to win. I was wrong. So were almost all other western observers. Theo van Seggelen, president of the international footballers\u2019 trade union Fifpro, says: \u201cFor me \u2014 and I was reasonably close to the fire \u2014 the vote was a complete surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turned out that Fifa cared only about naked power and money. In addition, more than a third of Exco\u2019s 24 members were accused of corruption linked to the vote. Several resigned from football. J\u00e9r\u00f4me Valcke, Fifa\u2019s secretary-general, wrote in a leaked memo that Qatar \u201cbought\u201d the World Cup. (He later said he\u2019d been misinterpreted.) Last year The Sunday Times alleged that a Qatari, Mohamed bin Hammam, made payments totalling $5m to win support for Qatar\u2019s bid.<\/p>\n

Western countries, hopping mad to lose the World Cups, have cried \u201ccorruption!\u201d But most non-western participants dismiss them (with some justification) as hypocritical, whining losers. Richard Attias, a French communications consultant who works with Qatar, told me: \u201cOnly a microcosm is interested in how World Cups are attributed \u2014 a very British microcosm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fifa\u2019s vote presciently recognised the geopolitical rise of Qatar and Russia. Fifteen days after the vote, a Tunisian fruit seller set himself on fire, and north Africans rose in revolt. Qatar, \u201cflush with the success of winning the rights to host the . . . World Cup and with its international recognition soaring as a result,\u201d then helped spark the Arab spring, writes Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Baker Institute fellow for the Middle East. Qatar funded Islamists across north Africa, and helped unseat Libya\u2019s Colonel Gaddafi. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea. We live in a new world order.<\/p>\n

It suits Blatter. Coming from a small country, he is skilled at accommodating big power brokers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, he thinks like them: Blatter, too, likes legal immunity, motorcades on empty highways, and respectful underlings. The central American football officials who recently compared him with Jesus and Nelson Mandela presumably knew the comparisons were absurd. But the absurdity simply emphasised their loyalty.<\/p>\n

Western countries are powerless to change Fifa. They could boycott the World Cup but, characteristically, they won\u2019t make sacrifices for their principles.<\/p>\n

Now some westerners are complaining about Blatter\u2019s unfair advantages over any opponent in Friday\u2019s vote. Many national football associations fear their supposedly secret ballots won\u2019t stay secret.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifa boss understood very early that there\u2019s a new world order in which westerners don\u2019t matter much, writes Simon Kuper in the FT. Blatter knows which of the soccer nations have money, and that is why he will be re-elected. In the 19th century, it was the British, later Americans, then Russians and currently Gulf … Continue reading “Blatter understands New World Order”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[186,219,6631,6063,66,2554,653,3377],"class_list":["post-19192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-britain","tag-corruption","tag-nwo","tag-qatar","tag-russia","tag-sepp-blatter","tag-switzerland","tag-world-cup"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19193,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19192\/revisions\/19193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}