The Spot

Wow, Sepp Blatter Sure Is Making a Lot of Crazy Claims These Days

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter leaves the Court of Arbitration for Sport on April 29, 2016 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Discredited former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has claimed that he witnessed the fixing of a draw for a European football competition. … Though he declined to name the competition, he suggested that the process had been manipulated by means of cooling the balls. “Balls are put in the freezer before the draw, and at the slightest touch you can tell if the balls are hot or cold. By touching them you know exactly what you have. … I never touched the balls, though others did.”—Vice Sports, June 14, 2016

Discredited former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has claimed that the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar happened because the middle finger of Franz Beckenbauer’s right hand “is unusually long.” “It is a specimen,” Blatter said, though he declined to say what he meant, exactly, by “specimen.” According to Blatter, Beckenbaeur’s notable digit put the “fear of God” into certain voting blocs: “Allegations that Jack Warner, former president of CONCACAF, received bribes for his organization’s support, hides the real story: The threat of Beckenbaeur’s finger was all it took to get the World Cup to Qatar, a country with no history of soccer love and a climate entirely unsuited to the sport.”

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Discredited former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has claimed that France’s win in the 1998 World Cup final—a game in which the hosts beat Brazil 3-0—was entirely down to Brazilian striker Ronaldo’s “being visited by aliens some 45 minutes before kickoff.” It had long been thought that the poor play of Ronaldo—at the time, the world’s finest striker—resulted from his having suffered a seizure before the game. Blatter has a different take: “Ronaldo was putting his shin guards on when Lord Thantian of Blarg appeared to him, ordering him to ‘drop a bit deeper, be more of a link man than a traditional No. 9.’ This so confused the Brazilian that he was unable to perform as he would have wanted.”

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Discredited former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has claimed that Princess Diana—then Lady Diana Spencer—once signed for Tottenham Hotspur. Said Blatter, “Unbeknownst to many, Diana was actually what the English refer to as a ‘nippy winger’: good first touch, could beat a man, solid crosser of the ball. But the royal family, when they found out about it, put a stop to it. She was already dating Prince Charles, and the Queen—a rabid Arsenal fan, according to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn—wasn’t about to see her son’s future wife pull on the white shirt of her favored side’s archrival.”

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Discredited former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has claimed that he is dating Taylor Swift. “We have tried to keep it a secret,” Blatter said, “but love will out.” Though there has been no comment from Swift’s camp, Blatter went on to say that the song “Wildest Dreams” is, in fact, about him. “Tay-tay gave it away with that first line,” Blatter cooed. “‘Let’s get out of this town / Drive out of the city, away from the crowds’ is clearly a reference to the staggering amount of time I have to spend in football stadiums.”

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Discredited former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has claimed that FIFA is an organization with an impeccable moral center, a veritable paragon of corporate virtue, a force for good like Kiva or the World Wildlife Fund. Blatter said, “I maintain that if FIFA ran not just soccer but the world, that peace would reign for a thousand million years, all humankind would be treated fairly and equally, and England would finally win a major football tournament.” He later retracted the bit about England, saying that his remarks had been taken wildly out of context.

Read more Slate coverage of Euro 2016 and Copa America.