There are times when public figures make statements that are so utterly extraordinary; so completely at odds with reality that they do not fail to take the breath away. A comment that makes you wonder exactly which planet the utterer of the pearl of wisdom is living on. Step forward Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, who yesterday staked his claim for the “most deranged comment of 2008 award.” According to the deluded Blatter, Manchester United refusing to assent to Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer to Real Madrid is a form of “modern slavery.”
Maybe I’m just a born contrarian but I really cannot see an army of modern day Wilberforces taking up oratorical arms in defence of the rights to “freedom” of the Portugese winger! Surely Blatter, for all his absorption in the marble hallways of the upper echelons of international sport, must realise how thoroughly offensive his comments are. Cristiano Ronaldo is paid around £150,000 a week and Real Madrid are offering him around £192,000 a week. To use the word “slavery” in this context, to compare this with the horrific sufferings of African slaves through the centuries is just downright offensive.
Blatter is a man with a bit of a reputation for engaging mouth before brain. It is only two years since he opined that women footballers should make their game more interesting by “wearing tighter shorts”. But this time he has truly surpassed himself. In rushing to the defence of a footballer whose petulance is at least a match for his footballing genius; in intervening in a dispute between two private businesses, he has managed to come up with the most offensive and wrong headed comparison possible.
Might I suggest to Mr Blatter that he spends less time bad mouthing English football and making spectacularly offensive statements and perhaps invests some time reading about the atrocious misery and cruelty of slavery, so he can perhaps understand quite how repellent his comparison is and avoid saying something quite so rotten in the future.
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Quite right. Of course, you could also talk about the present day white slave trade…