Fifa President Sepp Blatter blasts South Africa critics

Fifa president Sepp Blatter has hit back at critics of South Africa hosting the World Cup.

Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has said awarding the tournament to South Africa was "the biggest wrong decision" Fifa has made.

But Blatter says these comments mask a disrespectful prejudice.
"It's an anti-Africa prejudice. There is still in the so-called 'old world' a feeling that why the hell should Africa organise a World Cup."

Hull manager Phil Brown has previously said the terrorist attack on the Togo team bus in Angola which killed two members of the support staff put a question mark against this summer's finals. But Blatter said: "I think it's a nonsense to combine what has happened in Angola, a terrorist attack for political reasons, and mix it up with the World Cup in South Africa.

"In Germany people like Uli Hoeness and also representatives of the professional leagues are saying we should not go there. But every year 11 million tourists go to South Africa and nobody says they should not go there.

"Colonialists over the past 100 years have gone to Africa and taken out all the best things, and now they are taking all the best footballers. There's no respect."

Africa's first ever World Cup kicks off in Johannesburg on 11 June.
BBC