Sepp Blatter: Football's Great Dictator

Benito Mussolini famously claimed that "Race is a feeling, not a reality." FIFA president Sepp Blatter's comments this week that, essentially, racial abuse in football is non-existent, can be put down to misunderstanding and can be shrugged off with a handshake, has similarly unpleasant overtones.

Drawing a parallel with one of the founding fathers of Fascism, responsible for the death of nearly half a million people, is not very complimentary. Sepp Blatter hasn't killed anyone. But his incredibly suspicious stranglehold on power, along with a stubborn resistance to change the status quo, have earned him a reputation that will blight the football history books for years to come.

Surprising as it may be to learn, Sepp Blatter began his career in public relations. You would have thought, therefore, that he would be well aware of how toxic he has become to the FIFA brand, and the only way to salvage things is to resign. His blunt refusal to do so paints a picture of a man who is willing to sacrifice progress for the sake of power, and every year he remains is one that costs the sporting world dearly.

If FIFA were a country - Blatter would be the third-longest serving leader in Europe. One of those ran unopposed, the other was elected after opposing candidates were beaten by police. The next man on the list after Blatter would be Vladimir Putin. Again, this is not pleasant company to be linked with, but after winning four elections, two of them unopposed, with serious challengers finding themselves thrown out of FIFA shortly before the vote, how else should his career be interpreted?

You then have to consider Blatter's continued outbursts, which serve only to grow football's reputation as backward-thinking, sectarian and and exclusive. In recent years, FIFA's president has managed to offend and alienate the most marginalised and vulnerable sections of the football community, particularly women, homosexuals and now blacks. If football is to grow, these are precisely the groups that need not to feel threatened by the game. Under FIFA's current leadership, this is never going to happen.

The latest outburst may be Blatter's most outrageous. It has certainly caused the most press controversy, and rightly so. From the president of world football's governing body, the only response to racism allegations that you can give is a very hard line. Regardless of whether he was mis-quoted, this is nothing like the response that Blatter gave.

Unlike other names mentioned here, getting rid of him will not be achieved by military coup. Only by adopting the one language that Blatter understands, namely sponsorship and endorsements, will results be achieved. At the risk of exclusion from official FIFA events, few are likely to be bold enough to take this kind of action. But the continued popularity of the sport may require that they do.

England Parker the Bus

We learned two things from last night's victory over Spain. First, we defend fine, better even, without John Terry in the side. Second, we need to stop wrapping our best young players in cotton wool and confining them to the Under 21s; they can compete very well at senior level and need to be given more opportunities to do so.

One thing we didn't learn, but I suspect might have just dawned on Fabio Capello, is that Scott Parker is our most important player. Most of us got the point when he won the 2010 football writer's player of the year. The reason he wasn't part of the World Cup squad, and why Michael Carrick and Shaun Wright-Phillips were, is that he won the award playing for West Ham. Now in a Tottenham side that has been unbeaten since he joined, I wouldn't be surprised to see him captaining his country in next year's European Championships. What remains incredible is that he has been overlooked at club and international level for so long.

Last summer, Parker made it clear that he was going to leave West Ham. Here's a list of the teams that should have been bidding:

• Everyone

In the end, Tottenham and Fenerbache were the only two teams to make their interest public. Spurs got him for £5.5 million. Now, they have a foundation to build their team around. With Parker anchoring the midfield, winning possession and playing it forward, the front five of Bale, Modric, Van der Vaart, Lennon and Adebayor can concentrate on attacking. Which they are quite good at. On current form, they will make the Champions League, worth £60 million. In my book, this spells a return on investment of ten times in the first year. 

Arsenal and Liverpool, meanwhile, spent well over Parker's price tag on players like Mertesacker (slow), Andre Santos (hilarious) and Jordan Henderson (weak) - so how does that sit with fans if this yields fifth or sixth place?

England's problem is, Van der Vaart, Bale and Modric aren't English. We don't currently have players like that, as was made painfully clear last night. Players such as Alex Chamberlain, Tom Cleverley and Jack Wilshere offer something like that level of attacking flair, but playing them all together is probably a decision a braver coach that Capello will need to make. 

For the immediate future, England's focus needs to be on how to take the ball from Parker and do something with it in the final third. The success of this venture will determine whether we make it out of the group in Poland and Ukraine. But it's encouraging to know at least that our historic 'problem position' - which needn't have been a problem for the past five years, has finally been sewn up.