People like Blatter deserve Nobel prize, Putin tells Swiss TV

[geek tragedy]

Source: Reuters


FIFA boss Sepp Blatter deserves a Nobel Prize for his stewardship of soccer's governing body, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired by Swiss broadcaster RTS on Monday.

On Saturday, at a meeting with Putin in St Petersburg, Blatter said that FIFA, facing a major bribery scandal, had passed a resolution offering full support for holding the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

"We all know the situation developing around Mr Blatter right now. I don't want to go into details but I don't believe a word about him being inolved in corruption personally," he said.

"I think people like Mr Blatter or the heads of big international sporting federations, or the Olympic Games, deserve special recognition. If there is anyone who deserves the Nobel Prize, it's those people.”


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/27/us-soccer-fifa-putin-idUSKCN0Q11X120150727

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[cosmicone]

1. Our presidents have traditionally lined up to praise brutal Israelis.

Putin has simply praised a football organizer who helped his country get the World Cup. We always rule in hypocrisy when we make fun of Putin.

[NuclearDem]

6. I'm sure that help didn't have a few zeroes attached to it or anything...

[Bosonic]

2. Maybe relatively, Putin raking in ~$70 billion makes Blatter look saintly

[newthinking]

3. He is making the point that people who put together international sports venues

are generally not the bad guys we should go after and do more good than bad.

Whether the mess with blatter is more real or more political (Or likely a combination) is to be seen, but obviously Putin sees it as having a geopolitical opera component.

It would be nice to see the PTB putting as much effort into going after the bankers that took down the economy or the close to 10 Trillion dollars of taxpayer money that is unaccounted for.

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. Two corrupt assholes stroking each other's massive egos.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

5. The Nobel prize for what, exactly?

For corruption? Jeez, how would the Nobel Committee ever make a choice, given all the possible candidates.