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 "Blatter is apparently good at finding money," a voice
intones on the trailer for the film which industry website IMDB
says will have its U.S. launch on June 5.
Heavily financed by FIFA and meant to show it as a force for
good - and Blatter as the Maradona of scoring sponsorships -
"United Passions" was born under a different star than the black
one hovering over world soccer's governing body.
U.S. prosecutors have launched a fraud and corruption
investigation of FIFA, which was announced to the world by the
early-morning arrests of several FIFA officials in Zurich last
week.
There were more arrests this week and on Tuesday, Blatter
announced his resignation, four days after being re-elected as
FIFA president and shortly before it emerged that he too was
under investigation by U.S. law enforcement.
This is not the kind of real-world trailer that FIFA had
envisaged for its movie which, according to IMDB, had an
estimated budget of 24 million euros ($27 million), of which
FIFA officials have acknowledged providing about 20 million.
"FIFA has been considering the production of a feature film
about its history for some time, dating back to 2004 when FIFA
was approached with a concept to coincide (with) our centennial
celebrations," FIFA says in a post on its website explaining why
it helped finance the film when the producers came cap in hand.
"FIFA then agreed to contribute, considering this to be a unique
opportunity to raise awareness of the breadth of FIFA’s work to
develop football globally. 'United Passions' allows FIFA to
highlight the challenges involved in establishing the FIFA World
Cup in order to turn it into the world’s biggest single sporting
event."
Directed by France's Frederic Auburtin, the film casts Gerard
Depardieu as Jules Rimet, the FIFA president who launched the
World Cup, and Sam Neill as Joao Havelange, who as FIFA's second
longest serving president signed up developing nations as
members - and ran into bribery issues of his own.
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Critics who saw it at the Cannes film festival in 2014 dismissed it
as a hagiography of Blatter and his predecessors and it sank like a
stone in limited release in soccer-mad Europe. On its opening
weekend in Hungary last year it took in just under $8,000 on 27
screens, IMDB says.
Director Auburtin could not be reached for comment through his
Paris-based agent, but in an interview with the New York Times this
week he said he would have preferred to look deeper into the
underside of FIFA.
“But I accept the job,” he said. “I know FIFA is producing the film.
As we say in France, don’t be more royalist than the king: Don’t be
the king if you are not the king.”
Roth also was not available for interviews, his publicist said in an
email. But the "Pulp Fiction" actor told The Times of London last
year that he had done a doubletake when he saw the script.
"I was like, 'Where's all the corruption in the script?'" Roth told
the Times. "Where is all the back-stabbing, the deals? So it was a
tough one. I tried to slide in a sense of it, as much as I could get
in there."
Auburtin said he also had slipped some "subtext" into the film, such
as an envelope, presumably containing cash, that is seen tucked into
a fruit bowl.
It was not enough to assuage the critics.
"The sheer self-regard inherent in this project is breathtaking,"
Irish Times film critic Donald Clarke wrote recently. "What sort of
men would think that any sane person would seek out a film
eulogising a sport’s governing body. Men in blazers?"
(editing by David Stamp)
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