Blatter Manages To Speak Sense On Human Rights In Qatar

Blatter - has he actually started thinking?

This is going to sound like the kind of thing we’d pretend FIFA President Sepp Blatter uttered in the name of satire. But he actually said it, to CNN. Yes, Blatter managed to address the issue of human rights without shoving his toes in his own maw. On the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, he said: “If the principles of human rights will not be respected, then this could be a problem. We will push Qatar to make sure the World Cup will be played in such conditions that other World Cups have been played and that human rights are respected.”

Let’s hope he’s not talking about Argentina 78. And naturally, the Scepticism Radar at WCHR world headquarters began to howl like a distressed mongoose. Is this just placatory PR to make up for his sad remarks about homosexuals abstaining from sexual activity while at the WC, and his admission to the Zürich-based Sonntagszeitung that he hadn’t even known that homosexuality was illegal in the Gulf state? Or has Sepp been subscribing to our feed and belatedly realised that the governing body’s mission could become more noble than merely making cash from man’s ability to kick a round ball?

Either way, it’s clear that FIFA officials are having a lot of second thoughts about their choice of host in 2022. Let’s move the tournament to winter to avoid temperatures in the 40s. Let’s share it with other Gulf states, because having the entire World Cup in more or less one city is not really a very good idea, is it? And yes, those sticky issues of treating all human beings as equals - criminalising innocent people is just not good for business any more.

But Asian Football Federation chief Mohamed Bin Hammam, a Qatari national who may well challenge Blatter for the FIFA Presidency this June, is mighty pissed off with all this retroactive talk. After all, they did win the bid fair and square! (Discuss.) “I'm really not very impressed by these opinions to change the time from July to January,” he told Sky News yesterday. “It's actually premature… it's peoples’ opinions and they're just discussing it on no basis or no ground. It's not up to one, two or three members of FIFA to talk about changing the time without getting the real stakeholders' opinions.”

He implied these two or three opinions are coming from Europe and are not reflective of the bigger view. And by “stakeholders”, Bin Hammam means other football functionaries, not the players who have to turn out in stifling conditions, or the (heterosexual) fans who may or may not opt to visit Qatar at the height of summer.

Well, it’s a debate, and we can only encourage that. And now that Blatter has thrown in the words “human rights”, they must become part of the debate too. With FIFA, the discussion can quickly turn as twisted and ugly as in any other political forum, but it’s looking more interesting by the day, with eventual reform a case of when, not if. The depth, substance and sincerity of that reform will, however, become the most crucial matter.