Bad manners from Blatter as he bags limelight to present the World Cup

At the 1966 World Cup Final, the head of state of the host country presented the trophy to the winning captain (above).

But FIFA boss Sepp Blatter appears to be so keen on taking centre stage for himself that he virtually shoulder-charged South Africa's President Zuma out of the way to thrust the World Cup into the hands of the Spanish team last night - with the local head of state only being allowed to touch the side of the cup as it was handed over (below).


Blatter had apparently been putting pressure on 92 year-old Nelson Mandela to present the cup, in spite of his age, his frailty and the fact that he's grieving the loss of a close family member. So, if Mr Mandela had agreed to do it, would Blatter also have shoulder-charged him out of the way?

And what would we have thought if one of his FIFA predecessors had treated the Queen in the same way back in 1966?

In both cases, I'd have thought much the same as I thought about the way he treated President Zuma last night, namely that it was the height of bad manners.

See what you think:


P.S. The embedded video from YouTube that was originally posted here suddenly became unavailable. Could it be, I wonder, that FIFA was so embarrassed by Blatter's behavior that they removed it? Luckily, I'd transferred it to a blog-friendly format that means it can still be seen here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No better now in 2014!!!