Sepp Blatter Still Fears Olympic Football
Ever wondered why the Olympic football tournament isn’t as good as it should be? Look no further than FIFA. The general consensus is that FIFA don’t want any football event rivaling the World Cup, and so Olympic football has been kept on a short leash. When the International Olympic Committee tried to reinvigorate the Olympic football tournament in for 1984 games, FIFA were opposed. The bargain that was struck was for European and South American team to only field U-23 players.
Since 1992, all countries have to field U-23 teams, with three “wild card” players who are either over 23 or have played in a previous Olympic footy tournament. And it’s just getting really interesting again. For example, at this year’s tournament it’s widely expected that Brazil will field a strong U-23 team, plus three stellar “wild card” players in their quest to win a first Olympic gold. That’s going to be some football worth watching.
But Sepp Blatter seems worried. Inbetween suggesting that protests against China’s human rights record are pointless, the Seppster is arguing that Olympic football should go back to being exclusively U-23. Because no one wants an international football event to include the stars players everyone wants to see.
His rather flimsy reasoning runs thusly: “I am of the opinion that the Olympics are an event aimed at young people.”
Genius Sepp. Except isn’t the whole point of the Olympics that it’s all-inclusive and aimed at everybody? Why else do they include curling as an Olympic event?
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Comments
By Ian | April 14th, 2008 at 4:25 pm 
FIFA is run by a crazy person. Nothing all that new, but it still somehow amazes me. Any tournament not run by FIFA is going to be described by FIFA as meaningless, but the Olympics? Is he really crapping all over the Olympics? Between threatening to kick Spain out of Euro 2008, making lude comments about women’s soccer uniforms, and this, does anyone, anywhere, still like him?
By ish | April 14th, 2008 at 11:32 pm man if countries really wanted to they could make the olympic football so fun. no matter what the world cup is the gold standard now so it doesnt matter whether the olympics makes roadways. the soccer in the olympics is one of the biggest drawcards for most countries since its between the youth cup and the world cup in ages.
Imagine argentina, brazil, france, italy and plenty of other countries with emerging(as in under23 talent) playing. we would see messi, aguero, banega, benzema, nasri, ben arfa, pato, marcelo and plenty more. Most large footballing countries could make a team of u23+3 that would rival there world cup squads.
Posted from 
Australia
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