European club draws rigged using frozen balls, says Blatter
Frozen balls containing team names have been used to rig European soccer’s club competition draws although the ruse was never used at Fifa, the former chief of the game’s world governing body, Sepp Blatter, has said.
“Of course it’s technically possible. That doesn’t happen in Fifa but I witnessed draws, at European level, in which that happened, but never at Fifa,” Blatter told Argentine daily La Nacion in an interview on their website (www.lanacion.com.ar).
Draws to decide which teams play each other are conducted by selecting the table tennis-size balls from plastic bowls. The balls are unscrewed to reveal the team names inside.
“You put the balls in the fridge. The mere comparison between them on touching them gives you cold ones and hot ones. On touching them you already know what you’ve got,” added Blatter, who is appealing a sixyear suspension from soccer at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“There was only one person who had that power (to fix draws) in Europe. Artemio Franchi did it for the draw in club tournaments,” added Blatter, referring to the late Uefa president who was in charge of Europe’s governing body from 1973 until he died in a road accident in Tuscany in 1983.
Uefa described Blatter’s allegations as “absurd”.
“Allegations that UEFA has in the past fixed draws for its competitions are completely absurd and therefore not worth a reaction,” Uefa said in a statement on Tuesday.
Blatter, banned from all football-related activities over ethics violations amid the worst graft scandal in Fifa’s history, also denied there had been a deal between himself and the late Argentine FA president Julio Grondona after Argentina’s favourable draw for the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.
Swiss Blatter, 80, was among dozens of Fifa officials brought down after revelations of years of corruption in the sport’s world ruling body.