Critical development in football
Hans-Joachim Watzke is concerned about Saudi influence
October 6, 2023, 9:39 p.m
Hans-Joachim Watzke criticizes some excesses in international football and wants to fight against them. Among other things, he complains about Germany’s lack of influence. The league boss also comments on a possible World Cup in Saudi Arabia.
Hans-Joachim Watzke has criticized the latest developments in world football and complained about Germany’s lack of influence. “We have worked hard in Germany for many years to ensure that we no longer have much influence, and Europe too. We have to be honest and say that FIFA is now opening up to other areas. The European influence is there Years have continued to decline – and German influence has already declined three times,” Watzke told Deutschlandfunk.
As an example, he cited Saudi Arabia’s investments worth millions in the summer transfer period. “This is not the football that I would actually like,” said the head of the supervisory board of the German Football League and vice-president of the German Football Association and confirmed: “You can assume that this situation is not nice and that I often suffer from it. That is no longer what I stand for in football.” Saudi Arabia also has good prospects of hosting the 2034 World Cup. This is viewed with skepticism in Europe. Watzke admitted that he “wouldn’t like this” either.
Watzke, who is also a member of the Executive Committee of the European Football Union, does not want to accept this. “If you see these excesses, there are two options: You go to the internal immigration and say, I don’t want to have anything to do with all that shit anymore,” he said. But this is out of the question for him. “If you have a responsibility, you have to try to live up to it somehow,” said Watzke. He therefore wanted to try to “mitigate these excesses a bit”.
He is conflicted about the awarding of the 2030 World Cup to six countries. “I think Spain, Portugal, Morocco is a cool combination. You can do it like that. It’s neat even from a distance.” To be honest, I’m not interested in what they were thinking, “since the three countries are still in the lead,” said Watzke, referring to a preliminary round game in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay: “I don’t even know where they are There were arguments. Maybe there are some too.”