I am a very happy man today, |
I am so disappointed. It is a shame for football that in the year 2006, you still have racism. |
I am sure there will be fair play this year. |
I asked Blatter if he was interested in supporting a trilogy of football movies that would celebrate the game and stimulate an appetite in emerging markets, particularly Asia and the United States. We felt we could really help the game there, and all we really required of Fifa was to provide access, to make the problems go away, to introduce us where they could and help us to feature real teams, real competitions and real players. |
I can tell you the new rules for racism are immediately applicable. From now on they are valid so it's the end of non-compliance with what our society is asking football to do. |
I can tell you this, not as a Swiss, but as the president of FIFA that we will act here and we will act tough, |
I consider this whistling to be extremely disrespectful and of course disparaging to national pride, |
I don't know how many meetings we've had about it. We're just not making any progress with the German Football Association. I don't understand it. I distanced myself from it from the start, but in the end I'm guilty anyway. In South Africa 2010 we'll take over the ticketing again. |
I feel this whistling shows a great lack of respect and disparaging to national pride. I wonder, therefore, whether it even makes sense to play these national anthems. |
I foresee the Challenge Cup having lots of success. |
I have been given a very clear mandate with a high responsibility to reinstall harmony and confidence in the football family inside in order to gain credibility outside, |
I have repeatedly stressed FIFA?s and my firm personal stance against racism and discrimination, but recent events have demonstrated that there is a need for concerted action and an urgency for more severe measures to be adopted in order to kick this evil out of the beautiful game. |
I need to be clear about this once and for all: the World Cup does not belong to Germany, this is not a German World Cup. It is a FIFA World Cup in Germany that cost us 1 billion Swiss francs. |
I still feel that there is too much club football, |
I still love football |