Traveller's Tales - The Tenth Most Powerful Person in the World

Published in 2006 by David Kay

Jean Sepp Blatter is the world President of FIFA – The Federation of International Football Associations. A survey claims he is the tenth most powerful person in the world. Whoever said that has not heard of Nathan Buckley or Ricky Ponting.

World President Blatter was visiting Port Moresby the other day. I was convinced that the visit was in celebration of last year’s famous World Cup game between PNG and Germany. You remember the game. It was the one won by the Germans in extra time after the telephone lines were down all night. Surprisingly, his visit had nothing to do with me.

As you might expect, the tenth most powerful person in the world has a lot of largesse to spread. Not to mention employing a multi lingual personal assistant. The 71 year old also travels with a very young and very beautiful personal beauty queen. Soccer is very wealthy. As well as building 22 soccer pitches his personal assistant told us that they have a few million Euros to spend on Education in cooperation with the European Union. That’s a bit more than the annual budget for the vocational education system.

So, if the tenth most powerful person in the world wasn’t here to celebrate me, what was he doing?

He was at Koki market. Koki is in Moresby south. It is a series of villages on the water a few minutes from Town. It is a depressed area and also includes some notorious raskol spots. It is the heart of Dame Carol Kidu’s electorate.

You might have heard of Dame Carol. She is the Minster for Community Development. She sits in Parliament as an independent and the only woman. She is completely straight, with not a hint of corruption, which is rare in a PNG politician. She is honest and has a genuine concern for her electorate. She is very clever at attracting donor funding for her portfolio, which happens to include sport. Dame Carol has been offered and rejected deputy PM positions more than once. She has also rejected opportunities to lead a group of independents in Parliament. To work with Dame Carol is like being in the middle of a tornado. Before you have time to suck in breath to say good morning, you are off designing a new community centre, or advising her on how to source World Bank funds. Never mind that you know nothing about either. Or maybe you are carrying her shopping to your car so that you can drive it to the village. Dane Carol is also amongst the best (probably the best) at getting her photo in the paper and her face on television.

So, there we were at Koki market. A few people were milling around waiting. There was a soccer match on a bit of dust outside. There was a pre school. There was no tenth most powerful man in the word and no Dame Carol. FIFA flags were being handed out. I was looking for Sepp Blatter buttons to wear on my shirt. I couldn’t find any.

Then I heard sirens approaching. Well, that’s not unusual in Port Morosely. A squad of clean and bright police cars arrived (that is unusual). Then a Mercedes Benz (of course). Out stepped the tenth most powerful man in the world. On his arm was a blonde woman at least thirty years younger than him, wearing a see-through white blouse. That is not a good thing to do in Port Moresby. From the other side Dame Carol shuffled across and took the arm of the tenth most powerful man in the world. She pushed the floozy aside. The white bloused floozy didn’t seem to mind. What happened next did not seem to worry the tenth most powerful man in the world, but I certainly couldn’t keep up. That must be what makes him so powerful.

There was a small community centre in the market. It was about the size of an inner suburban lounge room. Lined against the wall were tables. Each table was for a community group – health care, HIV/AIDS, literacy, sport, education, save the whales. They all had FIFA flags, information brochures and a person. Blatter did not so much tour the room. He was wheeled at staggering pace to every table. Dame Carol introduced him and just as he was about to ask someone a question pushed him to the next table. The tour probably took all of two and a half minutes. Given the small room, the entourage, the television cameras, the press, invited guests and the floozy it was a complete crush. From there it was outside to a little informal sector craft market. We were now up to minute 3.  I needed a rest.

After a tour of the little craft market it was time to visit the Pre School in the next shed. That was scheduled for minute 4. All the children had FIFA flags waving (but no Blatter badges). They sang a song. The floozy was in rapture. Blatter better watch out or he might become a 71 year old dad. The preschool tour took a bit longer. It was now minute 6.

All the time there was this soccer match going on in the dirt outside. The players even had shirts to denote the different teams. They had come from Fisherman’s Island. That’s a real place. They came across in banana boats to play the game. They were probably unemployed youth from the Island. By now they were very sweaty youth.  A makeshift stage had been set up to the side of the game. At around minute 8 the entourage arrived. Blatter moved to the pitch and joined in. He looked OK for a teenager, let alone the 71 year old tenth most powerful man in the world.

Now it was Dame Carol’s moment.  The game stopped as she approached the platform. She took the microphone and announced that she was here to introduce “The President of the World……………………………………………” After some pause “….soccer”. That certainly grabbed the attention of the sweaty kids from Fisherman’s Island. It didn’t faze the man though. I think he thought he was. He spoke about how soccer can save the world, stop Aids, teach people to read, cure malaria, defeat corruption, unite communities and halt droughts. He really must be powerful. If only soccer could make the kids from Fisherman’s Island walk on water they could get home.

By about minute 12 the dust storm came again as the entourage departed. I was still scratching my head trying to work out which one of them was the tenth most powerful man in the world. I knew it wasn’t the floozy. But was it the man in the blue shirt or was it Dame Carol?

Needless to say there were a million photos in the paper the next morning. All of them had Dame Carol in them and some of them had the floozy. A couple also had the tenth most powerful man in the world.

That night, it turned out, that after curing Aids, providing universal education, relieving the drought and whatever else, Sepp had solved the problems of in fighting in the PNG Soccer Federation which was now as united as anything in PNG ever is. A powerful man indeed.

The next day I had to go to the office as normal. There were the normal amounts of hold ups. There were kids roaming the streets instead of being at school. The hospital was full of Aids patients. I didn’t see a soccer match anywhere. The tenth most powerful man in the world and his entourage were off to Fiji to fix up the problems caused by the military coup. Then I think they were probably off to the Middle East in the afternoon.