Blatter Communicates Firing Pretty Well
Wielding the ax for the second time since being reelected president of FIFA, Joseph “Sepp” Blatter has fired Keith Cooper, the organization’s communications director, a man respected and well liked by the international soccer media.
No reason for Cooper’s dismissal was given. Blatter had his new right-hand man, acting general secretary Urs Linsi, deliver the news, rather than face Cooper himself.
“I was called in by the acting general secretary--not the president, whom I have known for almost 30 years, but who was unable to tell me himself--and told I was being dismissed [immediately],” Cooper told England’s Guardian newspaper.
“It was really quite brutal.”
Cooper had been FIFA’s communications director for seven years and had established a good working relationship with the media. As comfortable in German or French as in English, he had an easy rapport with newsmen that made him perfect for the sometimes politically tricky position.
“It is a huge shock and a bit difficult for me to understand, coming just two weeks after the World Cup, the most successful media operation of any sports event in history,” Cooper told the Guardian.
“I have done the job since January 1995 and it’s the only job in the world I wanted to do. I asked the reason and was told there was no reason.”
Cooper, who will be paid through the duration of his contract, which expires at the end of the year, is the second key figure fired by Blatter since his reelection June 29.
Almost immediately after winning a second term, Blatter dismissed Michel Zen-Ruffinen as the organization’s general secretary. During Blatter’s reelection campaign, Zen-Ruffinen had been vocal about corruption and financial wrongdoing within soccer’s world governing body.
Cooper had remained neutral in that campaign.
“I tried to keep out of all the political infighting and I thought I had been successful in that,” Cooper said. “But apparently other people do not share that view.”
Markus Siegler, a spokesman for Blatter, told Bloomberg News the firings were part of a restructuring of FIFA’s headquarters staff that Blatter promised during the World Cup.
“This is an internal thing,” Siegler said. “There are reasons, of course.”
Mathis Faces Surgery
Clint Mathis, the United States World Cup team striker whose Mohawk hairdo has survived a return to Major League Soccer, will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee July 17 to remove torn cartilage, the New York/New Jersey MetroStars announced Tuesday.
Mathis was injured during the MetroStars’ victory over the Crew in Columbus, Ohio, Saturday and underwent an MRI in Los Angeles Tuesday morning. Bert Mendelbaum, the U.S. team doctor, said Mathis has both a torn cartilage and a sprained ligament in the right knee.
The striker will be sidelined for three to five weeks.
Asian Games Draw
International soccer will return to South Korea when the port city of Busan plays host to the Asian Games Sept. 27-Oct. 13.
The draw for the tournament produced the following groups for first-round play:
Group A: South Korea, Malaysia, Maldives, Oman.
Group B: United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Yemen, Thailand.
Group C: China, India, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan.
Group D: Japan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Jordan.
Group E: Iran, Qatar, Lebanon, Mongolia.
Group F: Kuwait, Tajikistan, Hong Kong, Pakistan.
The women’s tournament will feature China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Play for Pay
With smaller clubs struggling financially to keep up with the bigger teams, some are resorting to innovative ways to keep costs down while remaining competitive.
Aberdeen, of Scotland’s Premier League, announced that it would institute a performance-related wage system for its players, rather than guaranteeing them a fixed income.
“Less and less money will be guaranteed for players, with more [money] depending on if they are in the squad, in the team, results, crowd levels and league position,” Stewart Milne, the club’s chairman, told the Scottish Daily Mail.
Hiddink, the Stamp
South Korea apparently can’t get enough of its World Cup players and their former coach, Dutchman Guus Hiddink.
Korean postal authorities say they plan to issue a series of 24 stamps featuring Hiddink and the 23 players from the team that finished fourth in the world, the best performance by any Asian nation.
Fund for Late Referee
The Federacion Mexicana de Futbol, Mexico’s soccer federation, has established a trust fund to help the family of referee Edgar Ulises Rangel, who died in an accident July 5 when the sports utility vehicle he was driving overturned on a highway between Mexico City and Acapulco.
Rangel, 38, a FIFA referee since 1997, leaves behind a wife and four children. He was en route to a Mexican national professional referees’ convention when the accident occurred.
