FIFA President Sepp Blatter makes a speech during the “Sports, Business and Ethics - a Situation Analysis” congress held by FIFA’s subsidiary Early Warning System (EWS) in Zurich yesterday. (Reuters)

AFP/Zurich

FIFA president Sepp Blatter yesterday backtracked on his call to dock points or relegate football clubs whose fans are found guilty of racist abuse and violence.

“How far should we go? Where should we stop?” the boss of world football’s governing body said at a meeting of the company Early Warning System, which monitors matches on FIFA’s behalf to fight match-fixing.

“Can we bring an end to violence or racism by docking points or relegating a team? Or would such measures lead people to come to games to get the match abandoned,” he said.

“We should do all we can but there’s a danger that if we have matches replayed or if we punish clubs on the sporting front, it will open the door to hooligan groups who will come to deliberately cause trouble.

“There is so much emotion surrounding football.”

Blatter’s comments go against his stance back in January, when the 77-year-old said that slapping financial penalties on clubs or ordering them to play matches behind closed doors did not go far enough.

Instead, he said, teams should be hit with a points deduction or even face relegation.

Blatter’s remarks at the time came after AC Milan’s Kevin-Prince Boateng and his team-mates walked off a pitch during a friendly match with fourth-division Italian side Pro Patria in protest at a solid hail of abuse from his club’s rivals’ fans.

After initially disagreeing with Boateng’s decision to take the laws of the game into his own hands, Blatter swung behind the player and said tough action was needed and football should show the way because of its worldwide following.

Boateng was recently named a member of FIFA’s anti-racism taskforce.

Yesterday, Blatter also said that a proposal for uniform sanctions across all of FIFA’s 209 member associations would be put to a vote at its congress in May.

“The same standard must apply for each and every league and national association,” he said.

 

FIFA, South Africa defuse match-fixing probe spat

South Africa and FIFA have managed to head off a full-blown battle over the country’s probe of a pre-2010 World Cup match-fixing scandal, which world football’s governing body saw as political meddling in the game.

FIFA said yesterday that the dispute had been defused after talks at its Swiss headquarters with South African sports minister Fikile Mbalula and the head of the South African Football Association, Kirsten Nematandani.

FIFA said that a deal had been struck that marked a “new milestone” in the fight against match-fixing, with an independent judicial commission of inquiry to be set up by the South African government.

Mbalula has been pushing for an inquiry to delve into a FIFA report which claimed that four of South Africa’s warm-up games before they hosted the World Cup were fixed by corrupt referees from Kenya, Niger and Togo.

But FIFA bristles at what it sees as government interference in football and had argued that the SAFA should investigate itself.

“This long-standing open case is harming South African football. It is vital that this matter which dates back to 2010 is concluded soon, with the culprits to be sanctioned in accordance with the zero tolerance policy,” said FIFA’s secretary general Jerome Valcke.