Nigeria Content Online

FIFA president Sepp
Blatter has defended the decision to award the World Cup to Russia and
Qatar, saying it was “natural” to spread the tournament around the
world.

At the end of a
significant year for world soccer’s governing body in which the World
Cup was held in Africa for the first time, Blatter told FIFA’s website
(www.fifa.com) that the criticism the ruling body had received was not
justified.

“The sporting media
don’t always appreciate the social or cultural importance of awarding
the World Cup finals to a country,” he said.

“They just think
about penalties, corners, refereeing and money. But, as I’ve already
said, this decision wasn’t about making money.”

Blatter added that
after giving previous World Cups to Asia and to Africa, it was
“natural” for FIFA to take the tournament to other regions.

“We have made historic decisions in terms of sport and geopolitics. We’ve sent the World Cup to new territories,” he said.

“The 2018 World Cup
will go to eastern Europe and the vast country that is Russia, and the
2022 event will go to Qatar, in the Arab world.

“The World Cup will discover new cultures in new regions, and that’s something I’m delighted about.

Blatter said moves to make football a universal sport had started under his predecessor Joao Havelange.

“When I jumped into
this project in November 1974 I did so with my feet tied together, and
I could see straightaway that there was more to football than just
kicking a ball,” he said.

“When I became the
FIFA President, the decision was made to go into Asia. And then I said
we had to go to Africa, which is what we did. It’s only natural, then,
that we should keep on moving into new regions.” Blatter said he
understood the disappointment of the losing candidates.

“But maybe some people have forgotten that in football you have to learn to lose as well as to win,” he said.

“It was a competition. Some people won, some people lost. That’s normal.”

Huge impact

He said this year’s World Cup in South Africa had had a huge economic impact on the country.

“2010 has been a
year of ‘fulfilment’, a historic year, one in which we’ve broken new
ground,” Blatter said “We’ve had the World Cup in Africa, which is an
extraordinary achievement in itself. It’s had a phenomenal impact
around the world, and the economic impact of the event can never be
underestimated.” “Back in 2004, when the competition was awarded to
South Africa, the country was a young republic that had been in
existence for 10 years and was looking to find its place in the modern
world,” he said.

“Since then, both
the rest of the world and South Africa itself have come to realise just
how important a country it is.” He said his only disappointment about
the World Cup was that African teams did not do better.

“To be honest, I
was expecting to see more African teams in the second round of the
World Cup, with one of them going on to the semi-finals,” Blatter said.

“Ghana just missed out by the narrowest of margins, though, and there was huge disappointment.”

REUTER