Quote of the day

“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s go together forward for the good of the game. We must carry the flame of honesty … or we betray the true spirit of this game we love.”

The surprise was that Blatter was not brandishing a simple sword of truth.

The FIFA president said FIFA’s “basic values of discipline, respect and fair play could be brought in everywhere in the world, and then we would have realised our objective – but our objective never finishes.”

And if honesty is one of those objectives, then it’s never really started.

Blatter continued: “From north to west to east and south…We shall wonder if one day our game is played on other planets. Then one day we won’t have the World Cup, we will have interplanetary contests.”

If such a day ever arrives, it’s fairly likely that a cryogenically reawakened Blatter will still be running the game.