Talk:Sepp Blatter

Silver goal still exists. The rule is applying at the Cup of African Nations 2006.

Corruption/Charges

In a 21-page dossier containing 300 pages of evidence presented to FIFA's executive committee early in May 2002, Michel Zen-Ruffinen accused Blatter of making unauthorized payments, covering up the extent of the losses from the bankruptcy in March 2001 of FIFA's former marketing partner ISL/ISMM and running down FIFA's finances through bad management. [1] These are serious charges, and should be dealt with. NuclearFunk 15:30, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Political Insensitivity

What about the situation with Northern Irish players (ruling that they have to hold a british passport to be eligable to represent their country, where as either british or irish sufficed in the past), which is in direct contravention of the good friday agreement - the fact that blatter can just dismiss decades of problems in Ireland suggests an extremely ignorant and insensitive personalilty - there are some things that are more important than the laws of football!!!

Neutrality of this article

I think this article doesn't give a fair and objective description of Sepp Blatter and his career. Much of it centers on alleged controversies, and yet no references appear in the article. For example, the article says that "His incumbency has been marked with rumors of financial irregularities and backroom dealings" and that "many questions regarding his integrity remain unanswered". I have two problems with these kinds of statements: first, they are unreferenced and may just be the opinion of the person who wrote the article; and second, they are too vague to belong in an objective article (why are we discussing rumors instead of fact? and just how much is "many"?). The criticism section, I feel, is written with clear bias. It begins with "Blatter has made many changes to football since he was elected president of FIFA which have been seen as detrimental to the sport and which a vast majority of fans strongly opposed". The article then goes on to list things like South Africa hosting the 2010 World Cup, eliminating the golden and silver goals in playoff games and removing the automatic qualification of previous World Cup winners. No references are given to suggest that the "vast majority" of fans espouse these views; moreover, in an organization so vast as FIFA and with football being such a global sport, I highly doubt that Blatter as one individual could be entirely responsible for these changes, as the opening sentence of the criticism section implies. I think this article needs to be rewritten in a neutral viewpoint. Much of what's in the criticsm section now could be rcast into a section called "Impact of Blatter's presidency on football" or something to that effect. As the Wikipedia article on NPOV suggests, let the facts speak for themselves: there's no need to tell people outright these things are negative - just state the facts neutrally and let the reader judge for themselves. Any discussion on this issue would be most appreciated.

I don't like Blatter but I have to agree. I added a {{fact}} tag to the most egregious breach, and I also have to say that the policy changes, even though championed by Blatter, are most likely vetted by a supervising body. So it's very questionable why they appear in this article at all. ~ trialsanderrors 00:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• i helped to change the tone in the critism part and added in a new section "changes under blatter". However, the part on his career also seem to be biased, wonder how to change that? -Zhudyzhu 07:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• I'm an outsider, but it looks to me like there have been citations and specific charges mentioned now, where apparently before there had been none -- who decides if and when the red "the neutrality has been challenged!" sign can be removed? Estephan500 14:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Technically, we're an encyclopedia that compiles and paraphrases third party sources. Blatter is a person that's much in the critical spotlight, so it shouldn't be too hard to document the opinions expressed in the article. So if he has been criticized for dictatorial management style, it should read something like "The [newspaper of note] cited unnamed sources within FIFA criticizing Blatter..." with a link or ref to the article. Although in the current state the article isn't strictly {{POV}} but more {{Sources}}, so I'm gonna change the tag. ~ trialsanderrors 17:08, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Email address

I've removed the email address - it seems unnecessary. - AndrewBellis 14:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Comments about women's football

Why is this not in the article? His derogatory comments which said that women "should wear tighter shorts" whilst playing are some of the words most famously associated with him. Although I personally think he is an absolute disgrace, the fact should be mentioned because it is so associated with him. Spuderoony 16:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

If you can source a quote, and provide references to reactions, then comments about women's football would be welcome in the article in my opinion. MLA 10:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Mexico

How could he ban Mexico forever from all World Cups? El Chompiras 02:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

2006 World Cup final

Wasn't Blatter supposed to be present at the 2006 World Cup award ceremony? Where did he disappear? Siggie 02:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It has been said that he had a stomachache, however, most people think that he was upset that Italy had won and so he did not go.

Diving

Do someone have a quote about supposed blatter's comments about diving?? I would be suprised he's encouraging diving! JeDi 19:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Article lacks references

I'm flagging this article with a sources tag, because I believe it lacks references for the most crucial facts it contains. References for the following would be appreciated: - Biographical and career details (something like an official FIFA bio would suffice for this). - The allegations of corruption, e.g. news articles that may have covered this - The sexist comments and those about diving

I also added in the comment he made about the referee of the Portugal-Netherlands match deserving a yellow card, along with references (same as those used in the article on referee Valentin Ivanov).

A picture of Blatter would also be good for the article if possible.

Incidentally, I personally don't like Blatter (I'm a football referee myself, and I thought the yellow card comment was completely out of place, especially coming from the president of FIFA). However, I think the facts quoted in this article at least deserve citations/references in order to ensure objectivity. --Sanchonx 16:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)