At Sepp’s Pleasure
The other week this correspondent was doing his daily scan of the BBC website when the irises in his eye-sockets were drawn to a headline in the sports section. The headline read ‘Sepp Blatter: Anybody who calls me corrupt should go to jail’.
Your correspondent clicked on the headline. The article explained how Sepp (President of FIFA) responds to those who accuse him of being corrupt (accusations being directed at him are due to arrests of some of his FIFA colleagues on corruption charges) by shaking his head and replying that they should go to jail.
What intrigued this correspondent was Sepp’s extreme response to those who accused him of acting dishonestly for personal gain. Why the wish to see them dressed in prison clobber instead of responding (to their accusations) with a dress down?
Sepp’s reaction stimulated this correspondent into a bit of research on him.
Your Correspondent began by googling him, and from the results, clicked on his Wikipedia page. While reading general information about him (i.e. President of FIFA since 1998, won five elections 1998, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2015, married three times, has one daughter), this correspondent came across an interesting piece of information about him concerning the 2011 election for FIFA presidency. It stated Sepp had stipulated before the 2011 vote, that if elected, it would be his last term as President. Your correspondent then googled this information looking for another source to confirm its validity. The website USA today corroborated the information by also stating that Sepp had promised FIFA members in his manifesto letter, if he won (2011 election), he would stand aside in 2015 (election).
Your correspondent then googled ‘Sepp seeking re-election 2015’. The results listed various sources which reported the same information i.e. in September of 2014, at a soccerex conference Sepp announced his intention to seek re-election for another term as President in 2015.
This correspondent’s response to these observations was to google (very handy research tool) ‘Sepp Blatter salary’. The first result listed a headline from the website Sporting Intelligence, which read, ‘FIFA paid $88.6 million in salaries in 2014. We can guesstimate Blatter’s take at $6+’. Your correspondent clicked on the headline and started to read the article by Roger Pielke Jr (Professor in Environmental studies program, University of Colorado).
Roger had started his story by stating that Sepp Blatter’s salary (as FIFA President) has never been disclosed. He estimated (from FIFA financials published in 2014) that of the $88.6 million paid out in salaries that year by FIFA, $33.7 million dollars of this was paid to the 13 members of FIFA management. The average per member worked out at $2.6 million. Roger reckoned that as President, Sepp would probably be paid 2-3 times over the average, giving him a salary between the range of $5-$8million.
What this correspondent found more interesting (in Roger’s piece) than Sepp’s 2014 guesstimated salary was the pay increases, given to those 13 members of FIFA management since 2009.
In 2009 salaries paid out to them by FIFA amounted to $22.7million (average pay per member of $1.75million). In 2012, their salary pot increased to $28.7 million (average pay per member of $2.2 million) and increased again by another $6million in 2014 to $33.7million (average pay per member of $2.6million). This meant that Sepp’s salary (presuming he’s paid 2-3 over the average salary) in 2009 would have been between $3.5-$5.25 million; enlarging to $4.4-$6.6million in 2012; and then further increasing to $5.2- $7.8million in 2014.
Now having pointed out the financial gains to being in FIFA management over the last few years and Sepp’s election promise in 2011, your correspondent has a fair idea where Sepp would wish to send him to, if he ever got to read this article- a Clink, preferably in Coventry.
