I read that Sepp Blatter is furious about the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s reluctance to allow him to remain a member beyond its mandatory retirement age of 80. This raises the following question: if true, is he furious enough to exercise his nuclear option by allowing the 2022 World Cup to clash with the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, to the considerable detriment of the latter?
If he does, the FIFA President would lay himself open to charges of being self-seeking, or even breaking his word. This is because he promised in November 2013 that the 2022 tournament would not be hosted in January or February.
There it is, clear as day on the FIFA website: “We will not play the World Cup in January and February. It would be totally disrespectful to the Olympic family and organisation when they have the Winter Olympic Games in January and February. We have also consulted our economic and media partners. So many different partners are with FIFA and the Olympic Games so we can not have the partners in two competitions at the same time.”
Blatter would also risk offending China – widely seen as a future World Cup host in waiting, not to mention one of the most powerful nations on earth. This is because Beijing has only Almaty to beat to win the right to stage those 2022 Games. This would be a development of some symbolism, coming only 14 years after the Chinese capital hosted the 2008 Summer Games.
The thing is though, you hardly need superhuman powers to see that, if the blazing Qatari summer is to be avoided, as many actors in this interminable sporting soap opera seem to desire, January/February is a pretty sensible option. This is because it would probably be less disruptive to the European leagues, where most money in the game is concentrated and where most of the biggest stars play, than a date towards the end of the year, as it would coincide, in part, with the midwinter break.
The essence of nuclear brinkmanship, moreover, is deterrence, and Blatter might not actually have to press his nuclear button.
The IOC’s age limit is the subject of the 37th of 40 recommendations to be put to the IOC membership for approval at a Session in Monte Carlo on December 8 and 9.
When I asked an IOC source whether this would be done in a series of Yes/No votes, or if members had a right to make changes to the text put in front of them, I was told, “they can amend should they wish”.
This being the case, if word was quietly spread to the effect that if the IOC were intent on obliging Blatter to retire as a full member on 31 December 2016 when he might still very well be FIFA President, then he, Blatter, would regard himself as no longer beholden to his pledge on the timing of the World Cup, I would think it might quickly spark pandemonium among the winter sports brigade.
This might, in turn, prompt IOC members to conclude that, on balance, it might be preferable to let the Swiss septuagenarian have his way, by amending the recommendation which, at present, would allow a one-time extension for up to five members who would otherwise have to retire at 70, but not those, like the FIFA President, for whom 80 is the current limit.
Blatter has this status by virtue of bye-law 2.7.1 to Rule 16 of the Olympic Charter, which maintains the age-limit of 80 for members elected, as he was, before 11 December 1999.
The actual wording of the bye-law states that any IOC member elected before this date “must retire by the end of the calendar year during which he reaches the age of 80, unless he was elected before 1966”. [my italics]
This brazenly unexplained exception – now redundant, since the senior IOC member, Russia’s Vitaly Smirnov, was elected in 1971 – enabled João Havelange, Blatter’s predecessor as FIFA President, who joined world sport’s most powerful club as long ago as 1963, to remain an IOC member until he was 95.
Perhaps the fact that the IOC was willing to allow the previous FIFA President, who represented Brazil at the Olympics in both swimming and water polo, to remain a member into advanced old age explains his successor’s alleged fury.
I struggle to understand otherwise why Blatter appears to attach so much importance to his IOC post – unless that is he fears the issue might be used against him in next year’s FIFA Presidential election.
After all, other trusted FIFA colleagues – Issa Hayatou of Cameroon and Lydia Nsekera of Burundi – are also IOC members and could be delegated to. Moreover, 81-year-old Lamine Diack appears to be presiding over the quintessential Olympic sport of athletics much as before, even though he has now been moved upstairs to honorary IOC member status on account of his age. (Honorary members do not have voting rights.)
Yet the way the FIFA President spoke out against age limits at the IOC Session in Sochi in February, arguing that imposing an age limit was an act of discrimination, suggests his IOC membership does matter to him considerably.
I don’t know if he will do it. It could backfire embarrassingly and his busy schedule leaves him with little time to gauge the likely effect on his fellow IOC members of any attempt to bring the 2022 World Cup timing issue into play. The Club World Cup begins in Morocco the day after the Session.
If the gambit worked, however, and he were able to bend the IOC to his will, what a prelude it would make to a potentially tense FIFA Executive Committee meeting in Marrakech on December 18 and 19.
Blatter is already expected to announce there the exact size of the additional bonus for football development that national associations can look forward to receiving in the early part of 2015. It could all add up to an impressive counter-thrust after one of the stickiest patches of his 16-year FIFA Presidency. But it would be a dangerous game and require a cool head and a steady hand to pull off.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938.