Sepp Blatter: Fixing affects few games; racism is a bigger issue

FIFA President Sepp Blatter believes match-fixing affects only a tiny percentage of football games. The sport is “so big, we will overcome”. Mr. Blatter was in Botswana in a 4 country tour before the finals of the AFCON 2013. He said that 700 matches are only a small percentage of a millions matches which are clean per year.

“Most of the matches which they (Europol) have put in this tray have been already analyzed, dealt with and even were at the court,” said Mr. Blatter.

Europol reported that 680 matches were under suspicion worldwide which includes World Cup and European Championship Qualifiers and two Champions League Games. Out of those 700 matches, Mauritania had most cases of match- fixing. Mr Blatter said in Mauritania that most cases of match-fixing that Europol raised in the report had already been dealt with or were being dealt with.

“We’re fighting against that (match fixing),” he said in French. “Because if the matches are fixed there’s no more interest in going to watch football.”

He continued by saying that racism is a more bigger problem than fixing and FIFA is examining ways of introducing more severe punishments for teams if their fans or players are proven guilty.

“We can also explore deducting points,” he said. “If it is a knockout competition, it will mean that we must kick out the team.”