Sepp Blatter Calls it Quits, Shifts Blame to Former Allies

In an exclusive interview, banned FIFA boss talks Platini, Qatar and sponsors

By 

JOSHUA ROBINSON

Unshaven, shirt open, a khaki-colored Band-Aid fitted below his right eye, Sepp Blatter leaned forward in his pink upholstered armchair. Just one day after receiving an eight-year ban from FIFA, he made a statement many in the world have been waiting to hear.

“I’ve finished my work in football,” he said.Though the 79-year-old Mr. Blatter plans to appeal the ban imposed by FIFA’s ethics committee and says he had no knowledge of wrongdoing inside FIFA and its member confederations, his 18-year reign over global soccer is over. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal at the Dolder Waldhaus hotel in the hills above Zurich, a four-minute drive from FIFA headquarters, Mr. Blatter made light of some matters, at one point likening his body to a Ferrari that has been treated like a homely Citroën 2CV, while at other times becoming defiant, calling his ban “nonsense.”

Mr. Blatter also addressed his decision to suspend the former FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke and the surprising U-turn that led his former heir apparent, Michel Platini, to throw his support behind Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Shortly before changing his vote, Mr. Blatter said, Mr. Platini told him: “‘Careful. If we vote for Qatar, the next day everyone will say that FIFA sold itself out.’ He told me that,” Mr. Blatter added. “And then a week later, he says something changed.”Mr. Blatter said Mr. Platini decided to change his vote during a 2010 lunch at the Élysée Palace between Mr. Platini, then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and a member of the Qatari royal family in which Mr. Sarkozy instructed Mr. Platini to support Qatar. France and Qatar share significant business interests in the aerospace industry. “Since I’ve been at FIFA, the World Cup has always been allocated on the recommendation—if not more—of governments,” Mr. Blatter said.

Mr. Sarkozy has denied these allegations in the past. A spokesman for Mr. Platini didn’t respond to a request to comment. He has said in the past that he always voted in the best interests of soccer.

Mr. Blatter also took aim at recent statements from FIFA’s top sponsors who have called for reform. “Companies, commercial partners are queuing up to get in,” he said. “If the Americans want to leave, others will come. But they don’t want to get out. They won’t leave.”

On Monday, Mr. Blatter appeared at a spirited news conference here to reject the FIFA ethics committee’s verdict, acting every bit the gregarious polyglot who has spent four decades building FIFA into an empire with a $1.52 billion cash reserve. On Tuesday, shortly before traveling home to the Swiss Alps for Christmas, he dialed down the bluster, appearing rueful at times. “I lost faith in our organization on May 27 with this intervention by American law enforcement,” he said, referring to the dawn arrest of seven FIFA officials and soccer executives on corruption charges at a Zurich hotel. “And the same day it presented FIFA as a mafia-type organization.”

Mr. Blatter wasn’t named in either of the two U.S. indictments related to corruption in global soccer, but he is under criminal investigation by Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice. The Swiss and FIFA investigations center on what Swiss authorities call a “disloyal payment” of 2 million Swiss francs (about $2 million) made in 2011 by FIFA to Mr. Platini, the head of European soccer’s governing body. Mr. Platini said the payment, which surfaced in September, was for advisory work carried out between 1998 and 2002 as part of a handshake deal. Mr. Blatter has said that if any error was made it was administrative, not ethical.

Both men received eight-year bans Monday, plus fines. But Mr. Blatter’s was only 50,000 Swiss francs to Mr. Platini’s 80,000 Swiss francs. “He’s a little more expensive than I am,” Mr. Blatter said, laughing. “But this is nonsense. According to Swiss law, to suspend someone for eight years, you must have committed a murder or a bank robbery.”

The subject at the top of Mr. Blatter’s mind Tuesday was the bitter end of his long association with Mr. Platini, once a close friend, who helped Mr. Blatter build FIFA and the World Cup into a financial juggernaut. Mr. Platini has said he believes the friendship soured after Mr. Blatter’s decision to seek the FIFA presidency yet again in 2015, after saying that he would step down. In the interview, Mr. Blatter said his relationship with Mr. Platini was always respectful, “until he began telling everyone, ‘Don’t vote for Blatter.’’’

Mr. Blatter offered new details about the December 2010 meeting which FIFA’s ruling Executive Committee voted to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively. He pointed to two factors that led to the selection of Qatar instead of the U.S., which he said he preferred: Mr. Platini’s decision to throw his support behind the Qatari bid, and a deal between representatives from Spain and Qatar that Spain would vote for Qatar’s 2022 bid in exchange for Qatar’s support for its joint bid with Portugal to host the 2018 World Cup.

Less than two weeks after the alleged meeting with Mr. Sarkozy, Mr. Platini voted for Qatar, along with several other European members of the Executive Committee, according to FIFA insiders. Among them was the representative from Spain.

The Spanish and Qatari bid teams couldn’t be immediately reached to comment. They have previously denied making a deal to trade votes. But Mr. Blatter said Tuesday that the agreement was widely known inside FIFA. “They said it in the Executive Committee,” Mr. Blatter said. “It was no secret that Spain was with Qatar and vice versa.”

Weeks before Mr. Blatter and Mr. Platini’s suspensions, Mr. Blatter lost his right-hand man at FIFA, the general secretary Mr. Valcke, who Mr. Blatter suspended following allegations that Mr. Valcke tried to profit from the sale of a personal cache of World Cup tickets.

Mr. Blatter said Mr. Valcke never forgave him for his suspension. “For me, the tickets had nothing to do with it. It was his personal attitude.” He said that Mr. Valcke harbored dreams of becoming FIFA president, which set him at odds with Mr. Platini.

“Jérôme and Platini always had that brotherly love, which is very volatile. You love your brother, you beat your brother up. As Frenchmen, they got along. But both wanted to be FIFA president.”

In an email, Mr. Valcke said he hadn’t talked to Mr. Blatter since Sept. 19. He said he didn't dream of becoming FIFA president.

Mr. Blatter’s errors in judging character have been a recurring theme of his tenure. Even after FIFA rid itself of allegedly corrupt figures like Chuck Blazer, who entered a guilty plea on corruption charges in New York, and Jack Warner, who has denied any wrongdoing, other controversial people funneled in. The latest wave came from South American soccer, which produced most of the 41 officials and executives charged in the U.S. probe.

“I thought they were wonderful people, that I knew,” Mr. Blatter said. “But most of these people are now accused—not yet convicted, but accused—or in prison.”

“It’s the philosophy of North and South America in the way they organize soccer, but these are not FIFA activities,” he said. “These are confederation activities over which we have no control.”

Since the May 27 arrests, Mr. Blatter has refused to take full responsibility for the problems at FIFA. Ahead of his election to a fifth consecutive term last spring, he shifted blame to the members of his executive committee, brushing off the idea that it was his job to monitor the ethics of those below him. His work at FIFA, he said, was to ensure the World Cup reached the four corners of the world and to allocate funds to all 209 national federations to build soccer infrastructure. He said he believes that to be the summit of his achievements.

“I spent 40 years at FIFA,” Mr. Blatter said. “It doesn’t bother me to talk about the past, because the past was more brilliant for me than the future.”