With most of the world agog with all of this week’s FIFA scandal, there were bound to be a few extra people to stir the pot even more. And, so as not to disappoint us, Russia’s Vladimir Putin went and stood up for team Blatter.

What did the scoundrel have to say about the matter?

Putin compared Blatter to other victims of U.S. “persecution”, the whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, calling the investigation “just one more brazen attempt to spread its jurisdiction to other states.”

He went on to argue that the other eight defendants “aren’t U.S. citizens, and if anything happened, it didn’t happen on the territory of the U.S.”.

That’s all very well, Mr Putin… But your country did, after all, win the bid to host in 2018.

Vitaly Mutko, the man who led Russia’s FIFA bid, is now the Minister for Sport. He has said that he suspects he will be questioned but that he “has nothing to hide” and that they will “show everything” to investigators.

With appeals to move the host nation of the 2018 World Cup, Sepp Blatter showed his support for Russia.

If politicians are not too happy that we are taking the World Cup to Russia, I always say to them, ‘Well, you can stay home, and in Russia we will hold the biggest world cup ever’.

LOL. These two.

[Source: Fortune]