Sepp Blatter told female footballers ‘wear tighter shorts’ to promote the sport
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has faced heavy backlash during the Qatar World Cup – but we can all still agree he's a vast improvement on predecessor Sepp Blatter.
Amongst his many indiscretions, the disgraced former chief of world football once suggested female players "wear tighter shorts" to put more eyes on the sport. Seriously.
Explaining his hotpants idea, Blatter said in January 2004: "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so.
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"And they already have some different rules to men – such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?"
As you can imagine, Blatter's comments went down like a lead balloon – as they should have. Then-England No. 1 Pauline Cope said the comments were "typical of a bloke", adding: "He doesn't know what he is talking about.
"We don't use a lighter ball for one thing, and to say we should play football in hotpants is plain ridiculous. It's completely irresponsible for a man in a powerful position to make comments like this."
Ex-Norway international Lise Klaveness, meanwhile, suggested Blatter and those fans who want to watch models "go and buy a copy of Playboy".
Despite the backlash, FIFA unbelievably doubled down. Spokesman Andreas Herren said: "The remarks were by no means meant to be offensive, not at all.
"Whatever he said, it was more a general remark, 'Let's take a look at that.' But it's not the ultimate recipe to salvage the women's game because he went on to say women's football has established itself and it has a future."
Thankfully the women's game is long past that point now with England's Euros winners inspiring a whole new generation of players this year.
And the discussion around shorts has switched from making them tighter to ensuring all players are comfortable, with Manchester City one club who have recently ditched their white bottoms to help them "perform at their highest level" while on their periods.
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