Sport Industry Group

SII 2007: Blatter admits lack of 'attention' over Visa- 1 Mar 2007 00:00:00

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.