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Lessons in crisis communications come from all sorts of places. I would never have predicted that a particularly telling one would come from FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
I’m not much interested in organized sports. My pursuits run more along the lines of hiking, canoeing and walking. But if forced to watch a game, I’d most happily view soccer. My three kids all played soccer when they were young and one of them, now 21, still does, at her university.
Furthermore, the women’s world cup is being played in Canada starting in a few weeks. So, I heard the news surrounding corruption charges against soccer’s global governing body, FIFA with more than typical curiosity.
I was disappointed but unsurprised when, on May 28/15, Sepp Blatter, won re-election as FIFA president. However, I was appalled by the lack of judgment in his remarks. “Now I’m the president of everybody,” he crowed. Here were his precise words:
It is my congress, I have the right to make the closing remarks. This is a very important congress. You see I am in a good mood. I was a little bit nervous today, but now I am the president of everybody, I am the president of the whole Fifa.
Does’t that sound cocky and self-serving? I know English isn’t his first language (he’s Swiss and he speaks French) but this should have made him more careful, rather than less, about anything he had to say.
The take-away message for the rest of us this this: When you’re in a tough situation, stick with the script that your handlers have given you! The text above was something that Blatter apparently added on, in an impromptu fashion, at the last moment.
The great irony, of course, is that he was forced to step down as president a mere five days later.
Finally, a soccer loss that just about everyone can agree upon.