"Because I love football and I love the footballers"
About this Quote
The line lands with a disarming simplicity: a powerful sports administrator justifies choices and longevity by appealing to love. Sepp Blatter, the long-serving and deeply controversial president of FIFA, repeatedly cast himself as the guardian of the game, and this declaration functions as a compressed mission statement. The parallel phrasing links two objects of devotion, the sport itself and the people who embody it on the field, signaling that policy and governance flow from affection rather than ambition or profit.
That framing works as public relations as much as sentiment. By foregrounding the footballers, he stakes a claim to moral authority, aligning himself with the human faces fans care about and distancing himself from the bureaucratic machinery under scrutiny. It is a way of converting institutional power into personal care, a paternal voice that insists governance is stewardship, not control. The rhetoric is especially potent in a sport whose emotions and identities are collective; to profess love of the players is to echo the way supporters experience the game.
Yet the phrase also lives in tension with the realities of his tenure. The era was marked by allegations of corruption, contentious World Cup awards, labor abuses surrounding tournament preparations, and long debates about player welfare, from racism to concussion protocols to a congested calendar. Against that background, love risks sounding like a shield, a warm word deployed to soften hard critiques. If one loves the footballers, the test is whether decisions consistently protect their well-being and agency, not merely the prestige of events or the expansion of markets.
Still, the sentence captures a truth about football’s allure: the game and its protagonists are inseparable. The drama resides in the feet and minds of those who play. By invoking both, Blatter articulates the emotional logic that draws billions to the sport, even as it invites scrutiny of how well the game’s governors live up to the responsibilities claimed by love.
That framing works as public relations as much as sentiment. By foregrounding the footballers, he stakes a claim to moral authority, aligning himself with the human faces fans care about and distancing himself from the bureaucratic machinery under scrutiny. It is a way of converting institutional power into personal care, a paternal voice that insists governance is stewardship, not control. The rhetoric is especially potent in a sport whose emotions and identities are collective; to profess love of the players is to echo the way supporters experience the game.
Yet the phrase also lives in tension with the realities of his tenure. The era was marked by allegations of corruption, contentious World Cup awards, labor abuses surrounding tournament preparations, and long debates about player welfare, from racism to concussion protocols to a congested calendar. Against that background, love risks sounding like a shield, a warm word deployed to soften hard critiques. If one loves the footballers, the test is whether decisions consistently protect their well-being and agency, not merely the prestige of events or the expansion of markets.
Still, the sentence captures a truth about football’s allure: the game and its protagonists are inseparable. The drama resides in the feet and minds of those who play. By invoking both, Blatter articulates the emotional logic that draws billions to the sport, even as it invites scrutiny of how well the game’s governors live up to the responsibilities claimed by love.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sports |
|---|
More Quotes by Sepp
Add to List
