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Alex Morgan: FIFA’s Sepp Blatter didn’t know who I was

By Mike Dyce

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United States women’s national team star Alex Morgan says FIFA president Sepp Blatter didn’t know who she was at an event to honor her and two others.

The accusations about FIFA president Sepp Blatter are wide ranging and all relatively horrific. Aside from the lengthy list of corruption claims against FIFA, Blatter has also put his foot in his mouth repeatedly.

Sometimes it is when it comes to making fun of Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, or sometimes when discussing women’s soccer. United States women’s national team star Alex Morgan had an interesting take about how Blatter didn’t recognize her at an event where she was on a short list for an award.

“I have experienced sexism multiple times, and I’m sure I will a lot more,” Morgan said in an inteview with Time. “I feel like I’m fighting for female athletes. At the FIFA World Player of the Year event, FIFA executives and FIFA president Sepp Blatter didn’t know who I was. And I was being honored as top three in the world. That was pretty shocking.”

While incredibly disrespectful that Blatter wouldn’t recognize Morgan, one of the biggest female soccer stars on the planet, it isn’t surprising to see how little he cares about women in sports.

When discussing how to drive popularity in women’s soccer, Blatter made probably the most sexist comment of all time.

“Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,” he said back in 2004, via The Guardian.

“They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, 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?”

So the trick to making women’s sports more popular is to mold everything after the Lingerie Football League? Right….

Maybe it is a good thing that Blatter didn’t recognize Morgan after all, it could’ve been worse if he wanted to talk about the sport with her.

This isn’t the first time it has happened either. In a story with Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl, USWNT star Abby Wambach remembers Blatter confusing her now-wife Sarah Huffman for Marta, a Brazilian female soccer player.

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