Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has told The Guardian that he does not agree with whistleblowing.
Blatter was in charge of world football’s governing body for 17 years before opting to resign in 2015 after becoming the subject of an investigation into corruption, which led to him being handed an eight-year ban from the sport, which was later reduced to six years.
Switzerland’s attorney general’s office said last year that the investigation into FIFA and Blatter was brought “markedly forward” by information from a “so-called whistleblower.”
Asked if he thought if whistleblowing was correct, Blatter said: “No. At school, if you had somebody who was a whistleblower towards the tutor, then…”
Asked if he thought whistleblowers were like snitches in school, he said: “Yes, yes.”
Blatter added on Yuliya Stepanova, the athletics star who recently exposed Russian state doping in her sport: “She wants to go to the Olympics, and now everybody says it is a shame she can’t go because she is a whistleblower.
“Before long whistleblowers will be allowed to go to everything. Because if you are a whistleblower, it’s not correct as well.”
Blatter said he accepted that the investigation had found evidence of corruption but pointed the finger at the individual confederations and said: “Why the hell then should the FIFA president bear all the charges, the responsibility and the blame?”
Blatter also confirmed that in the past he had sought the Nobel Peace Prize, though for FIFA rather than for himself.
“We had meetings with the Nobel prize organisation,” he said. “I was there, and what I was asking, really asking, was for the Nobel prize: for football, not for a man. It is the movement, for FIFA.”
Source: http://www.espnfc.us/blog/fifa
