10 Things Sepp Blatter Wants You To Forget

8. That His Middle Name May Or May Not Be ‘Bellend’

A protester wearing a mask depicting FIFA President Sepp Blatter stands in front of the building where the 65th FIFA congress takes place in Zurich, Switzerland, Friday, May 29, 2015. Protesters from the global campaign movement Avaaz demand the resignati
Anja Niedringhaus/AP

2010, and South Africa host the FIFA World Cup. In return, Sepp Blatter was made beneficiary of the Order of The Companions of O R Tambo. The award is handed out to foreign nationals under the guise of “friendship shown to South Africa”. The world at large was made aware of this when stories ran reporting the recognition along with the hitherto unknown fact that Blatter’s middle name happened to be ‘Bellend’.

Because embarrassingly for the South African government, the person tasked with updating the presidency’s website had taken Blatter’s name from Wikipedia, unaware his page had been vandalised to include the middle name ‘Bellend’ (I guess there’s a reason why academia frowns upon the site).

Unfortunately for fans of nominative determinism the world over, it was just a big misunderstanding, and Sepp Blatter’s middle name isn’t ‘Bellend’ after all. That didn’t stop the story from spreading, though, or from plenty of people praying for it to be true.

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Dale Armitage hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.