How Blatter earned SA soccer’s loyalty, and its vote

TWO weeks before the Fifa elections that were held on Friday, South African Football Association president Danny Jordaan told the Sunday Times why his organisation supported the incumbent president, Sepp Blatter.

“You see, Sepp Blatter declared his candidacy in 2014 in the congress in São Paulo, Brazil. He said: ‘I’m going to stand another term.’ Then it was quiet and we thought there were no other candidates. Three days before the closing date, all of a sudden there are now five candidates.

“And when I met them I said to them: ‘Look, to be a president of an international federation is quite a serious thing. What made you decide three days before the door closes that you also want to put your hand up?’

“It creates the impression that this is not a . . . deep, analyticalbased decision. It is based on just somebody phoning you and saying: ‘No, there’s one candidate, put your name.’ And then you put your name.

“By the time they came, most of the confederations had already discussed this question. And the question was simply, does Blatter justify our continued support? Because there were no other candidates.

“And when we met as the national executive committee of Safa, we did discuss this matter and people felt that yes, Blatter has done a lot. Of course, we had to deal with this question from a governance standpoint, whether people should have a position for so long. But in this case, there’s one candidate, that question could not be ad- dressed. So the question we had to address is, did he do enough?

“If you look at Sepp Blatter’s history, he became the general secretary. We asked Fifa ... please can you expel South Africa? Blatter and [former Fifa president João] Havelange ex- pelled South Africa.

“They came here in 1991. You must remember, in 1991 Safa was just formed but apartheid was still on our books. But notwithstanding that, we asked them to accept South Africa, and of course at that time there was this question . . . whether or not the process towards [the first democratic elections in South Africa] was irreversible.

“There was the so-called irreversibility test.

“But that test simply meant what Mandela said. So [international sporting bodies, including Fifa] had a meeting with Nelson Mandela in ’91 and they agreed. Blatter and Havelange went back and South Africa became a member of Fifa in 1992.

“When it came to 2010, the World Cup, Blatter actually risked his own long history in international football to say the World Cup must go to Africa.

“And when we were awarded the World Cup in 2004, it was 100 years after Fifa was formed in 1904.

“So 100 years, from 1904 to 2004, the world was just convinced that, this Africa, just forget about them, they can never host the World Cup.

“And that was a bitter battle. And you saw the battle that we went through in 2006 and again for the World Cup in 2010. It is what Thabo Mbeki called Afropessimism.

“So we were convinced that Blatter has done enough for us and there was no actual real alternative.”

The question was simply, does he justify our continued support?