For two days, Britain has been up in arms over Sepp Blatter.

Senior government officials, players, coaches and newspapers have called for the FIFA president to resign as the head of world football's governing body, and coverage of his comments about racism in the game has been nearly around the clock on television.

Outside the country, the collective reaction has been muted or even nonexistent.

"I'm quite bemused by the response of the people in other parts of the world," said David Skinner, a sociology lecturer at the Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.”There are certainly some parts of the world where it's deemed to be perfectly acceptable to racially abuse people."

From the top politician in Britain to David Beckham, Blatter has faced huge criticism in the country since claiming that racist abuse does not exist on the football field and that any racial incidents could be settled by a handshake at the end of a match.

Although Blatter said yesterday that he was sorry if his words offended anyone, he stopped short of retracting what he said on Wednesday night in a pair of television interviews.

And in the wake of Blatter's statements, many national football federations refused to even talk about the topic.

The Swedish football federation said it could not comment, while the Argentines also declined to speak. The Greek federation didn't even want to go on the record as saying”No comment," and the Germans held an internal meeting before deciding they wouldn't say anything, either.

Although many wanted to stress that they were against any form of racism, the respective media in a lot of those countries and others have also pushed the incident aside. Daily sports newspapers L'Equipe and La Gazzetta dello Sport barely covered the news that is making big headlines in Britain — and prompted both Beckham and British Prime Minister David Cameron to speak out.

"The comments were appalling. A lot people have said that," Beckham said in Los Angeles, where the Galaxy are preparing for the MLS championship game.”I don't think that the comments were very good for this game."

One prominent former player from mainland Europe refused to comment on Blatter's remarks, and refused to even go on the record as not commenting. The former great, who has competed in the World Cup, the European Championship and won more than one European Cup, told The Associated Press”I don't want to be involved in it."

Luis Aragones, the former Spain coach who led the team to the Euro 2008 title, also declined to comment.

Some have spoken out, including black South African government minister who was pictured with Blatter on the FIFA website shortly after Wednesday's interviews.

"You can't wash racism away with a handshake," said Sexwale, an anti-apartheid campaigner and former political prisoner on Robben Island.”Once you use a racial slur, it doesn't go away. You can't exchange it with a jersey. You can't mitigate it with a handshake."

Former France player Lilian Thuram, who is black and has often spoken out against racism in football, said he saw no reason why Blatter should resign over his comments.

"Blatter could have said it because he doesn't realize how much it hurts," Thuram said.”But, I have to say that I know Mr. Blatter and that he is against racism."

Reaction has also been muted from FIFA sponsors, who pay millions of dollars to have their names associated with the World Cup.