Opinion Hey, bestie
Looks like the embattled Fifa president has at least one powerful ally — Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin 
Russian President Vladimir Putin. (AP Photo)
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have a new friend. No, it’s not the whale he tagged with a crossbow. It’s also not the tiger he tranquillised, or the polar bear he shot for science, or the snow leopard he stroked into submission. After his special friendship with North Korea’s dear leader, Kim Jong-un, hit the rocks earlier this year, when Kim cancelled on Putin’s generous invitation to attend a World War II commemoration in Russia, Putin’s rolodex was missing a like-minded leader with whom he could share notes on, say, ways to remain president for life. Well, no longer will this absence taunt him, going by the display at the Fifa draw for the qualifying rounds of the World Cup in Russia in 2018.
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Putin and the embattled Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, who just won another term despite accusations of presiding over widespread corruption as the head of football’s governing body, appear to be engaged in a bromance for the ages. At the ceremony, Blatter gushed that Putin had made him “happy and comfortable” (perhaps because the latter was one of the few to defend Fifa), while Putin returned the compliment, telling the Swiss state broadcaster that people like Blatter “deserved the Nobel Peace Prize”.
As mutual admiration societies go, this one is a tad terrifying. Both oversee massive, powerful entities that are economic messes and corrupt to the core. Dissent is ruthlessly stamped out. Both acquired and retained power by rewarding loyalists with spoils from oil money (in the case of Russia) and sponsors (in the case of Fifa). The foundations of a strong friendship, maybe, but not really Peace Prize material. Still, Putin may be on to something with his proposal to award new BFF Blatter with the Nobel. After all, Blatter unites much of the football-watching public — billions of people the world over — in the shared goal of loathing him for what he has allowed to be done to their beloved game.
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