For the Good of the Game

Biography of Joseph S. Blatter

FIFA General Secretary and Chief Executive Officer

Joseph S. (Sepp) Blatter is General Secretary of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), soccer’s world governing body. Mr Blatter was appointed to this position in November 1981 after a distinguished career in business and sport, and has been Chief Executive Officer since 1990.

As the CEO of FIFA’s administration, Mr. Blatter is in constant contact with the organisation’s 198 member nations and is in charge of carrying out the decisions of FIFA’s Executive Committee and ensuring that the members adhere to FIFA’s Statutes and Regulations while at the same time acting as FIFA’s “foreign minister”.

Mr. Blatter began his professional career as Head of Public Relations of the Valaisan Tourist Board in his native Switzerland and then became General Secretary of the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation (1964). He then pursued journalistic and public relations activities in the fields of sport and private industry. As Director of Sports Timing and Public Relations of Longines S.A., he was involved in the organisation of the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games, acquiring his first taste of the international sports scene.

In the autumn of 1975, as Director of Technical Development Programmes at FIFA, Mr. Blatter began to set President João Havelange’s projects into motion. It was the time when ideas for competition and educational programmes were germinating and the foundations being laid for competitions in the under-20 and under-17 categories as well as women’s and indoor (futsal) football, all which are pillars of FIFA’s worldwide activity.

Born on 10 March 1936 in Visp, Switzerland, near the famous Matterhorn, Mr Blatter was an active soccer player from 1948 to 1971. Today, he is a member of the Swiss Association of Sportswriters and a member of the Panathlon Club, an association of sports executives. During the course of his versatile career, he has received many awards and distinctions, including the Olympic Order in 1994.

He graduated from the Collège de Sion and St Maurice in Switzerland with a school-leaving certificate and then gained a degree as Bachelor of Business Administration and Economics from the Faculty of Law at the University of Lausanne.