Sepp Blatter Challenged By Bookmaker's Joke Candidate for FIFA President

David Ginola is a retired 47-year-old former French soccer player who is well-known to Anglophiles out there due to his memorable stint in the late 90s with Newcastle United and Tottenham. And, as of Thursday afternoon, Ginola is also the only challenger to Sepp Blatter for FIFA President.

At first glance — hooray! — this is good news. It’s about damn time someone decided to run against that myopic, blundering Swiss dinosaur. An organization like FIFA shouldn’t be run by an out-of-touch 78-year-old, whose been running the thing since 1998, right?

There is, of course, a catch. Ginola’s campaign is a stunt funded by Paddy Power, an Irish bookmaker, which is paying the Frenchman somewhere in the neighborhood of $380,000. The BBC details that Ginola might not even reach the criteria set by FIFA to mount a campaign, real or fake. (Thinking about the ethics of a bookmaking company using money to buy votes support its candidate might make your head explode, so don’t take this seriously.)

Based on his press conference Friday, Ginola doesn’t sound too prepared. Then again, how prepared do his backers want him to be? I’d guess all Paddy Power cares about is a) his name recognition and b) that his hair looks good.

The shameless part of this charade is Ginola is asking people to spend money to back him, a portion of which goes right into his pocket or to fund the farcical campaign.

There’s no sense giving this any more attention that it’s getting. The campaign is a joke — a joke that is par for the course with FIFA.

The saddest part is that it’s come to this: the only campaign against Blatter (so far) is a PR-building farce sponsored by bookies. Actually wait, no, the saddest aspect is that outside America and a few other pockets around the globe, nobody really seems all that upset by the Blatter presidency, fueled by politicking and glad-handing. Americans tend to think of Blatter as some rejected Austin Powers villian archetype, but around the world he doesn’t seem to prompt the same level of rancor.

Fact is, it’s 2015 and FIFA — or any organization of its ilk — probably should embrace forward-thinking leadership, unafraid to handle change. Unfortunately Blatter’s world view is locked firmly in the 20th century, if not 19th.

Something tells me Ginola, regardless of his stunt, would not change that all too much if elected.

Changing FIFA is going to take more than a publicity stunt, obviously.

RELATED: FIFA Apparently Doesn’t Care Too Much About Ethics or Corruption, But You Already Knew That

[Photo via Getty]