AP
London: FIFA President Sepp Blatter has said that he thinks that the football's governing body's reputation has improved because of the Confederations Cup, despite widespread demonstrations in Brazil over big spending on the event.
According to BBC, a further protest is expected before Sunday's final between Brazil and Spain in Rio, and there were doubts whether President Dilma Rousseff will attend the match.
Although Blatter sympathized with the people who took to the streets across 100 cities in Brazil, he,however, said that FIFA had come out stronger because of the protests and their image had enhanced, adding that football had played a positive part in Brazil, giving it emotion.
Hoping that the government would clear up the social unrest before next summer's World Cup, Blatter said that this was a political problem and they had patience, trust and confidence in the government.
Across peaceful protests in Brazil, FIFA was criticized for making a tax-free profit out of the World Cup and leaving the hosts to make all the investments, something with which Blatter disagreed and said that the aim of FIFA was not to take profit out of the country but to grant it necessary help and make sure the World Cup was a success.
He further said that the World Cup provided 90 percent of the income of FIFA and football is played across all countries in tough situations such as in Syria and Afghanistan, adding that there was unrest also in Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Greece but football was still being played.
Blatter assured that the World Cup next year would be a success and hit back at reports that suggested he had fled the country without any warning, insisting that he had only been fulfilling a previous commitment to attend the Under-20 World Cup in Turkey.
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