Following Brazil’s 3-0 trouncing of world champion Spain in the Confederations Cup final, FIFA President Sepp Blatter did his usual event post-mortem, saying thatdespite the widespread protests throughout the country, the tournament was definitely a success.
“As the president of FIFA, I have to say that, from an organizational point of view, when itcomes to stadiums and the soccer game, I am particularly happy with what has happened here,” Blatter said. “On the soccer field, it’s easy to say that it has been the best quality Confederations Cupwe have ever organized. The matches were attractive even with a representative of Oceania in Tahiti at a lower standard.”
He added: “Naturally, the competition has been played in asituation where there was definitely social unrest with protests and manifestations, but I have to say finally that soccer has played a positive part here. It’s part of emotion and I would say soccerhas connected people in the stadiums. Perhaps unfortunately it also connected people in the street. I can understand this social unrest, absolutely. But on the other hand, football at this time bringsto the whole continent of 200 million these emotions and hope.”