Former FIFA boss Blatter says goodbye to his companion: “Franz was also wonderfully elegant as a person”

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Joseph S. Blatter (87), from Upper Valais, was FIFA president from 1998 to 2016. In 1975 he came to the World Football Association. A year after Germany became world champion with captain Franz Beckenbauer. But Blatter had already met the German super footballer for the first time. “That was in the early 1970s, when I still worked for the watch company Longines. At the German Sports Journalists Festival in Munich we looked for the footballer with the hardest shot. Beckenbauer didn’t have the sharpest shot, but he did have the most precise one.”

According to Blatter, that was certainly characteristic of Franz’s qualities, both on and off the field. “He was an incredibly elegant player; and a wonderfully elegant person. With humor, joie de vivre and the proverbial Bavarian tranquility: take a look!”

“Franz was more than a football player”

For Visper, who was deeply affected by the death of the emperor, he was an excellent player and one of the most influential personalities. “If you want to honor Franz on a sporting level, only the greatest players in history can serve as benchmarks: Pele, the Brazilian genius, Alfredo di Stefano, the great Argentinian – or Johan Cruyff, the magnificent Dutch attacking virtuoso.” And in the autumn of Beckenbauer’s playing career with Cosmos in New York, he united with Pelé. “Perhaps one of the most spectacular chapters in modern football,” said Blatter.

The 87-year-old continued: “But Franz was much more than a footballer. He was perhaps the first superstar of our game from mainland Europe. The fact that he was appointed emperor and promoted to a light figure says it all.” And because different standards apply to shining figures and emperors, Beckenbauer led the German national team to the World Cup title as team leader in Italy. “And all this without having the required coaching diploma,” the ex-Fifa boss recalls with a smile.

The 2006 World Cup prize caused a stir

The last great episode of Bavaria’s rich life was not all laughs. When he brought the 2006 World Cup final to Germany. Only then were massive irregularities discovered. The Blatter/Beckenbauer duo should have appeared before the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona in 2020 in the so-called summer fairytale trial. But due to Beckenbauer’s poor health, his part of the trial was interrupted and Blatter did not travel to Ticino either. Finally the whole story came to an end.

And so Blatter says goodbye to his companion: “With Franz, European football loses perhaps its most dazzling personality. Above all, we lose a wonderfully charming, kind-hearted and sweet person. Dear Franz, I bow to you and your life’s work. Rest in peace.”

Source : Blick