The football world may have grown accustomed to Sepp Blatter’s spectacular gaffes over the years but the Fifa president put his foot in his mouth again today with a tasteless joke about John Terry’s alleged affair.
The Fifa president, who has previously stated that “homosexuality is more popular in women’s football,” and described Manchester United’s refusal to allow Cristiano Ronaldo to join Real Madrid as “modern slavery”, today decided to have his say on the controversy surrounding the deposed England captain.
“Listen, this is a special approach in the Anglo-Saxon countries,” Blatter said. “If this had happened in, let’s say, Latin countries, then I think he would have been applauded.”
Terry flew to Dubai this morning in an attempt to repair his marriage amid allegations of an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the ex-partner of England team-mate Wayne Bridge. The revelations saw Terry, Britain’s highest-paid footballer, on £150,000 a week, stripped of the England armband, to be replaced by Rio Ferdinand.
