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  1. Politics
24 December 2010

Winner: Sepp Blatter

By New Statesman

A rich and unaccountable institution decides to host a massive public event in a country which doesn’t welcome gay people. Somebody asks the boss whether he feels bad about that at all. Boss laughs it off: the gays will be fine, so long as they don’t have sex! Nobody’s all that surprised, because the boss in question is Sepp Blatter. How does he get away with it? In almost any other institution the top guy would have to go after just a couple of goofs; Fifa seems to be hit by a new scandal every year, and Sepp’s now into his 13th year in charge. He’s almost comically villainous, perched on top of his inscrutable organisation, seemingly bent on staying there forever. A task, alas, that he’s very good at.

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