{"id":12496,"date":"2012-07-17T12:54:59","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/soccer-blatter-moves-to-clarify-world-cup-buying-comments\/"},"modified":"2012-07-17T12:54:59","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:54:59","slug":"soccer-blatter-moves-to-clarify-world-cup-buying-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/soccer-blatter-moves-to-clarify-world-cup-buying-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Blatter moves to clarify World Cup ‘buying’ comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

ZURICH, July 17<\/span> (Reuters) – FIFA President Sepp Blatter set
\nout to mend his relationship with Germany on Tuesday by
\nclarifying comments which appeared to suggest the country could
\nhave \u201c”bought” the right to host the 2006 World Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The 76-year-old Swiss wrote a letter to Bild newspaper,
\nexplaining that what he was trying to say in an interview
\npublished on Sunday was that World Cup hosting decisions were
\nalways surrounded by suspicion.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

In the interview with Swiss paper Sonntagsblick, Blatter
\nremembered that Germany were awarded the tournament ahead of
\nSouth Africa in 2000 after the Oceania representative on FIFA’s
\nexecutive committee, Charles Dempsey, abstained from voting.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“World Cups being purchased? There I am reminded of the vote
\nfor the 2006 World Cup, where somebody left the room at the last
\nminute. And so suddenly instead of 10-10, the vote stood at 10-9
\nin Germany’s favour,” Blatter was quoted as saying, although the
\nactual final vote was 12-11.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“\u201cI’m happy that I did not have to cast the decisive extra
\nballot. But, well, suddenly someone stood up and left. Perhaps
\nin that case, I was also too well-meaning and too naive.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“\u201cNo I don’t suspect (that the 2006 World Cup had been
\npurchased). I’m making an observation.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

In Tuesday’s letter to Bild, Blatter said he wished to put
\nhis comments into context.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“I wanted to say that one can always find a pretext to doubt
\nthe legality of a decision,” he said.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“\u201cIt shows that with a World Cup hosting vote, you can
\nalways find a pretext to spin a conspiracy theory. Even in
\nconnection with Germany, which delivered a perfect World Cup, a
\nsummer fairly tale of which the whole country can be proud.”
\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZURICH, July 17 (Reuters) – FIFA President Sepp Blatter set out to mend his relationship with Germany on Tuesday by clarifying comments which appeared to suggest the country could have \u201c”bought” the right to host the 2006 World Cup. The 76-year-old Swiss wrote a letter to Bild newspaper, explaining that what he was trying to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}