Swiss newspaper article: Blatter Crash

Pictures courtesy of Blick and Tages Anzeiger

 

Photograph of Sepp Blatter's Mercedes sports car on the embankment

Blatter’s car after the crash    Photo: Markus Hubacher

 

Photograph of the overturned Golf - a victim of Blatter's driving

The victim of Blatter’s driving   Photo: Markus Hubacher

 

Photograph of the Police

Police close the road to collect evidence   Photo: Markus Hubacher

 

The things they say...

‘Neither FIFA nor its President have anything to hide, nor do they wish to.’

Blatter press release, 28 January, 2003

BBC Panorama Reporter Andy Davies:

‘A one million franc bribe … is it not correct that Mr Blatter asked that it be moved to the FIFA official who was named on the payment slip?’

FIFA Director of Communications Markus Siegler:

‘If you do not stop now, then we call the security and we put you out.’

FIFA Press conference, Zurich, Tuesday, 11 April 2006

‘I am deputy chairman of the finance committee of FIFA. I oversee a budget of US$2 billion and I have never seen one iota of corruption.’

Jack Warner, Trinidad Express 12 December 2004

‘Lying and deception and bad faith are standard operating procedure at FIFA.’

Adam C. Silverstein, a lawyer for MasterCard in their successful action against FIFA, New York, December 1, 2006

‘I do not believe a Jew can ever be a referee at that level (Argentine Premier League) because it’s hard work and, you know, Jews don’t like hard work.’

FIFA senior vice-president and chair of Finance Committee, Julio Grondona, 5 July 2003. Buenos Aires

‘FIFA is a healthy, clean and transparent organisation with nothing to hide. There is huge public interest in FIFA, therefore we have to be as transparent as possible. We will try to communicate in a more open way so the world can believe us and be proud of their federation.’

FIFA General Secretary Urs Linsi, January 2003, on fifa.com

 

UPDATE: Swiss media are predicting that Blatter could face up to three years in jail if it is discovered that he was using his cellphone while driving - even if using a hands-free model.

Whatever happens, Blatter will probably lose his licence for three months, have to take a test to see if he is safe to allow back on the road and pay a fine of at least 10 days salary.

He has always refused to admit what he pays himself from FIFA. Will he tell the truth to the court? And will he pay out of his own pocket? Or charge the fine to FIFA, as he does other personal expenditure?

Blatter Crash Mystery:
Who tampered with evidence?

Thursday 22 October, 2008
Last Saturday afternoon FIFA president Sepp Blatter, 72, roared out of an Alpine mountain tunnel in his £100,000 luxurious 6.2 litre Mercedes sports car, smashed into a slower-moving car he was trying to overtake, lost control and cannoned across double white lines, hitting an oncoming VW Golf.

The Golf is said to have overturned three times before coming to rest. The driver suffered only minor injuries. Miraculously there were no children or passengers.

 

Blatter’s out of control supercar travelled several hundred yards after the collisions before he could halt on a steep embankment.

 

Swiss media is reporting – as is visible in crash scene photographs – that immediately after the crash, somebody removed the number plates from Blatter’s car, apparently hoping to delay identification of the driver. The VW Golf plates were untouched. Police from Berne are investigating. Blatter’s spokesman Hans Klaus would say no more than Blatter was unhurt and back at work.

 

Quite why Blatter was travelling apparently alone in the mountains without his driver or his blonde Polish girlfriend Ilona has not been clarified. Their relationship can be tempestuous.

 

Blatter’s Mercedes SL 63AMG sports car has a 525 bhp engine, super wide tires and can rocket from zero to 60 mph in less than five seconds.

 

His choice of gas-guzzling car and insistence on avoiding scheduled airlines or rail and always flying in a Presidential Gulfstream or other private jet makes mockery of FIFA’s claims to be environmentally conscious.

 

His poor judgement last Saturday, putting other road users lives at risk, again raises questions whether, in his eighth decade, Blatter is a fit and proper person to run the world’s favourite game.

 

 

 

 

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