Update: Blatter Apologizes re Qatar/Gays Comment

[Macmoish]

Caught Offside

FIFA President Sepp Blatter Suggests that Homosexuals Don’t Have Sex During 2022 Qatar World Cup
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digg1 comment by Mr Neutral on December 13th, 2010Isn’t it time Sepp Blatter released a Comedy DVD?

Sepp Blatter is confident that social and religious barriers can be overcome despite fears being raised over the staging of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The FIFA president, who was speaking in Johannesburg at the launch of a post-2010 World Cup legacy project, has come in for criticism following a decision by the world governing body to take the competition to the Middle East for the first time.

Apart from the searing temperatures expected during the period the finals are traditionally held, during June and July, there could be other problems with hosting the competition in an Islamic country.

Current laws mean drinking alcohol in public is forbidden, while bars and nightclubs are almost non-existent. Another issue could be public affection, and gay groups fear problems in a country where homosexuality is illegal.

When asked about such issues, Blatter initially joked by saying: “I would say they should refrain from any sexual activities.”

He then continued on a more serious note: “We are definitely living in a world of freedom and I’m sure when the World Cup will be in Qatar in 2022, there will be no problems. You see in the Middle East the opening of this culture, it’s another culture because it’s another religion, but in football we have no boundaries.

“We open everything to everybody and I think there shall not be any discrimination against any human beings be it on this side or that side, be it left, right or whatever. If they want to watch a match somewhere in Qatar 2022, I’m sure they will be admitted to such matches.” (Guardian)

Seriously, it’s like Sepp Blatter has turned into some sort of ‘On the Buses’ character, with all the charm, grace and hilarity of Bernard Manning and Roy Chubby Brown rolled into one. The fact that the FIFA president could even make such a joke is sheer lunacy. If FIFA had an ounce of decency they would seek to clean up their act but it’s such a closed shop that it seems that change will only occur if it is forced upon them by the constituent members that make up world football’s governing body.

On other news Prince Ali of Jordan, hoping to become the youngster member of FIFA’s Executive Committee, has suggested that the 2022 World Cup take place across the Arabian peninsula with some games being hosted in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. This all comes off the back of the very real prospect of the World Cup being moved to January, a suggestion that mysteriously only came into the debate AFTER Qatar had won the race to host the tournament.

www.caughtoffside.com/2010/12/13/fifa-president-sepp-blatter-suggests-that-homosexuals-dont-have-sex-during-2022-qatar-world-cup/

[cpr]

He is simply unreal.......

[klr]

Hurry up & die Sepp

[Lonegunmen]

WTF?? "How to win friends and influence people" - someone send Sepp a copy for Christmas.

[Macmoish]

INDEPENDENT


Blatter reassures doubters that 'Qatar will change by World Cup'
By Thahir As


Sepp Blatter is confident that social and religious barriers can be overcome despite fears being raised over the staging of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The Fifa president, who was speaking in Johannesburg at a post-2010 World Cup legacy project launch, has come in for criticism in recent weeks following a decision by the world governing body to take the competition to the Middle East for the first time.

Apart from the searing temperatures expected during the finals months of June and July, there could also be other problems with hosting the competition in an Islamic country.

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Current laws there mean that drinking alcohol in public is forbidden, while bars and nightclubs are almost non-existent. Another issue could be expressing affection in public, with gay groups fearing problems in a country where homosexuality is illegal. When asked about such issues, Blatter initially joked by saying: "I would say they should refrain from any sexual activities."

He continued on a more serious note, saying: "We are definitely living in a world of freedom and I'm sure when the World Cup will be in Qatar in 2022, there will be no problems.

"You see in the Middle East the opening of this culture, it's another culture because it's another religion, but in football we have no boundaries.

"We open everything to everybody and I think there shall not be any discrimination against any human beings be it on this side or that side, be it left, right or whatever."

Blatter added: "If they want to watch a match somewhere in Qatar 2022, I'm sure they will be admitted to such matches."

He feels there is still plenty of time between now and then to sort out any problems that may arise and appealed for calm, adding: "I think there is too much concern for a competition that will be done only in 12 years.

"But this gives me the opportunity to say that in Fifa, and this is in the statutes of Fifa, whether it is in politics, whether it is in religion, we don't want racism, and we know what this means, and neither do we want discrimination.

"What we want is just to open this game to everybody and open it to all cultures, and this is what we are doing in 2022."

The Fifa president insisted that money played no role in taking Fifa's showpiece event to new countries, with Russia hosting the event for the first time in 2018 after beating England, Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium in the 2 December vote.

"This is development of football and don't speak about money," he said. "This has nothing to do with money, as it had nothing to [do with it] with Africa.

"It is the development of the game. We have to take [it] to places where it can improve and have a social and cultural impact. And it's what we did here in Africa."

Blatter was in the company of the South African president Jacob Zuma at Soccer City, the venue where the World Cup final was held, and praised the efforts of the 2010 hosts, saying he hoped that future host countries would take lessons from this year's finals.

He said: "Africa has shown to the world of football, and in this case our executive committee, where we shall go with the World Cup. We shall go to new territories. We started with Asia in 2002 but then we came to Africa and you know how difficult it was to come here. We had to [use] a rotation system or otherwise it would never have been here.

"And now where we go, in 2014 we are in Brazil – but it's not so easy to go to Brazil as well. After that we're going to eastern Europe, to Russia, where the World Cup has never been, and later on we go to the Middle East. We go to the Arab world, the Islamic world."

And he added: "We trusted South Africa and when you trust people, they get confidence. This is what we did with the African people. They organised this World Cup, everyone together, and you saw the result. Africa is everywhere now."

President Zuma said: "We achieved our goals with regard to the successful hosting of the Fifa World Cup event. Now remains the difficult but most important task of ensuring a lasting legacy and to build world-class national teams both at youth and senior level.

www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/blatter-reassures-doubters-that-qatar-will-change-by-world-cup-2159616.html

[Macmoish]

Picking up some momentum... Of course, the people most disgusted are probably not the ones who like Blatter in the first place.

BBC

Fifa boss Sepp Blatter sparks Qatar gay controversy
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has joked that gay fans travelling to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar should "refrain from any sexual activities".

Gay rights groups have criticised the decision to award the tournament to a country where homosexuality is illegal.

But Blatter, apparently joking, said: "I would say they [gay fans] should refrain from any sexual activities."

On a more serious note, Blatter added: "I'm sure when the World Cup will be in Qatar there will be no problems."

However, former NBA star John Amaechi, who revealed that he was gay in 2007, was highly critical of Blatter's comments.

BBC sports news correspondent James Pearce says Fifa will make no further comment following Blatter's remarks on attitudes to homosexuality in Qatar.

"Fifa says Blatter gave all the clarification required in his press conference," said Pearce.

The Islamic country of Qatar was the surprise winner of the race to host the 2022 World Cup, beating Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States when the 22-man Fifa executive committee voted in their favour in Zurich on 2 December.

If sport can not serve to change society, even temporarily during the duration of an event like the World Cup that invites the world to participate, then it is little more than grown men chasing a ball

Former NBA star John Amaechi
Fifa has since come in for criticism after the decision to take the World Cup to the Middle East for the first time.

Concerns were raised about hosting the tournament during the summer months in a country where temperatures can reach 40C to 50C while current laws mean drinking alcohol in public is forbidden.

Gay groups are also worried about the acceptance of homosexual fans, with the Gay Football Supporter's Network saying at the time of Fifa's decision: "We strongly condemn Fifa's decision and will be leading a LGBT [Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender] boycott of all activities associated with World Cup 2022.

"We do not feel the World Cup should be held in any country that abuses and disregards the basic human rights of LGBT people."

But Blatter does not foresee any difficulties, saying: "You see in the Middle East the opening of this culture, it's another culture because it's another religion, but in football we have no boundaries.

"We open everything to everybody and I think there shall not be any discrimination against any human beings be it on this side or that side, be it left, right or whatever.

"If they want to watch a match somewhere in Qatar 2022, I'm sure they will be admitted to such matches."

Blatter says even if there are problems, there is still plenty of time to sort out any issues.

"I think there is too much concern for a competition that will be done only in 12 years," he added.

"But this gives me the opportunity to say that in Fifa, and this is in the statutes of Fifa, whether it is in politics, whether it is in religion, we don't want racism, and we know what this means, and neither do we want discrimination.

"What we want is just to open this game to everybody and open it to all cultures and this is what we are doing in 2022."


Amaechi was the first NBA star to reveal that he was gay
But Amaechi did not see the funny side of Blatter's "refrain from any sexual activities" comments, telling his official website: "The statements and the position adopted by Sepp Blatter and Fifa regarding LGBT fans who would pay the enormous ticket and travel prices to attend the World Cup in 2022 should have been wholly unacceptable a decade ago.

"Instead, with little more than an afterthought Fifa has endorsed the marginalisation of LGBT people around the world.

"Anything less than a full reversal of his position is unacceptable and if the FA and football and sporting associations around the world fail to acknowledge this insult, they too will be complicit.

"If sport cannot serve to change society, even temporarily during the duration of an event like the World Cup that invites the world to participate, then it is little more than grown men chasing a ball and we should treat it as such."

Blatter, who was visiting South Africa - the hosts of the 2010 tournament, insisted money had no part in taking the competition to new parts of the world.

Russia won the right to host the 2018 competition.

"This is development of football and don't speak about money," said Blatter.

"This has nothing to do with money as it had nothing to [do with it] with Africa.

"It is the development of the game. We have to take to places where it can improve and have a social and cultural impact. And it's what we did here in Africa."


newsvote.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/9284186.stm

[isleworthranger]

I found the people of Qatar wonderful hosts when I went there and the rules are not half as bad as some of the media like to portray concerning drinking and women having to cover up etc

As long as visitors respect the culture of the Country they will be welcomed with open arms and though I don't think it was right to award the World Cup to them I would happily visit again

[toboboly]

I like the way he thinks things will change just for the World Cup......

[Macmoish]

A subject previously discussed on this board...

Guardian

The ugly prejudice that casts a shadow over the beautiful gameTwenty years after Justin Fashanu came out football remains out of step with the real world

Richard Williams The Guardian, Tuesday 14 December 2010 The example of Justin Fashanu has inspired a more enlightened generation. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters
Somewhere in one of the bigger European leagues is a gay footballer: a wonderfully gifted player, popular with his club's supporters, an international who has appeared in World Cups and is at an age when the best years of his career almost certainly still lie ahead of him. But, of course, his sexuality remains a secret to the world at large.

Not, however, to team‑mates past and present. And although at the moment he seems to be functioning effectively in a civilised environment, at one of his previous clubs he became the object of sly dressing-room homophobia dressed up as laddish wit. In public, too, aspersions were cast on his ability to fit in with the way the team went about their business; the remarks were in a sort of code, although probably none of those involved meant any real harm. Like Joey Barton's obscene gesture to Fernando Torres at the weekend, which in its ignorance and stupidity recalled Robbie Fowler's altercation with Graeme Le Saux almost a dozen years ago, they were the horrible product of an age-old dressing-room culture of empty machismo.

The player concerned – and you will have to take it from me that he really does exist – has it in his power to change all this. His prominence means that were he to speak publicly about his sexuality, notice would be taken around the world. And we would all, I believe, be surprised by the results.

It is almost exactly a year since Gareth Thomas – the first Welsh rugby union player to win 100 international caps, the second highest try scorer in the country's history, and a former British and Irish Lions captain – took the massive step of declaring his homosexuality. Driven by the agony of deception, Thomas clearly believed that the potential reward, or at least the relief, was worth the great risk, and how magnificently he was rewarded.

As far as one can see, his decision has brought him nothing but acceptance and admiration from the outside world. On the field, having made his rugby league debut for Crusaders last March, he went on to help Wales qualify for next year's Rugby League Four Nations tournament.

Football's most famous coming-out involved Justin Fashanu, the former Norwich City and Nottingham Forest forward who suffered the scorn of a belatedly repentant Brian Clough. The sad chaos of Fashanu's life, which ended by his own hand in 1998 at the age of 37, can be gauged by the list of clubs attached to his name. There were 22 in 19 years as his career spiralled out of control. Now there is an organisation called the Justin Campaign, which campaigns against the game's institutionalised homophobia.

Twenty years after Fashanu admitted his sexuality (in the Sun, of all places), and more than half a century since the Wolfenden Report recommended that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be treated as a criminal act, attitudes have changed. Many, probably most, of us work in environments where gay people feel entirely at ease. We have gay television stars, civil partnerships, and ministers of the crown whose open homosexuality causes not a ripple on the waters of public life.

The special prominence of football in global culture gives it an unusual degree of influence. Currently it remains one of the last significant bastions of prejudice against gays, and were the footballer I mentioned earlier to decide to declare himself, no doubt he would need quite as much courage as Gareth Thomas showed. The consequences, however, would earn him a place in the game's culture exceeding even those occupied by George Eastham, who undermined the iniquitous retain and transfer system 50 years ago, and Jean‑Marc Bosman, whose judicial challenge 35 years later cast off the last remaining shackles of the old feudalism.

Eastham and Bosman liberated footballers in one, purely material sense. They remain, however, prisoners of less tangible bonds. Freeing themselves from the fear of gays would earn them no extra salary or bonuses, but it would bring them into step with the rest of the world around them. And all it would take is one man's courage.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/dec/14/ugly-prejudice-gay-footballers

[Macmoish]

Blatter apologizes...

AP

Blatter apologizes to gay activists for remark

FIFA president Joseph Blatter talks to reporters Friday at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi. FIFA president Joseph Blatter talks to reporters Friday at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi. (Karim Jaafar/Getty Images)

FIFA president Sepp Blatter issued a public apology Friday after the fallout from his remarks that gay soccer fans should abstain from sex during the 2022 World Cup at Qatar.

Blatter told journalists in Abu Dhabi that he was sorry if anyone was offended by his comments earlier this week in South Africa, where he said gay visitors should "refrain from any sexual activities" in Qatar because of the Gulf nation's strict laws against homosexuality.

"It was not my intention and never will be my intention to go into any discrimination," Blatter said in Abu Dhabi, which is hosting the Club World Cup.

"This is exactly what we are against. If somebody feels that they have been hurt, then I regret [it] and present apologies."

Blatter's comment prompted a leading international gay rights group to demand an official apology from FIFA.

Juris Lavrikovs, communications director for the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, said the comments were "very unfortunate and have left people deeply offended" and said "we are talking about a very basic human right that is being violated."

Lavrikovs said that Qatar and more than 70 other countries in the world still criminalize individuals for homosexual relationships, and some countries even punish them by death.

Qatar beat the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea in the FIFA vote on Dec. 2 to host the 2022 World Cup.

Since winning the right to host the tournament, concerns have been raised about Qatar's social restrictions, limiting the drinking of alcohol to hotels, frowning on public affection and considering homosexuality taboo.

Herman Ouseley, chairman of Kick It Out, a British campaign group for equality and inclusion in football, said earlier this week that he expected better from someone in Blatter's position, and that his joking about the matter showed a lack of leadership.


www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2010/12/17/sp-fifa-blatter.html#ixzz18NKKQ7Nn

[Lonegunmen]

Idiot! or more to the point...alleged corrupt idiot.