ZURICH: FIFA President Sepp Blatter rejected an emotional plea to resign yesterday as the corruption scandal engulfing the game’s governing body drew warnings from sponsors and political leaders.
As FIFA faced the worst crisis in its 111-year history, Michel Platini, former French international who heads UEFA, Europe’s soccer confederation, said he had told Blatter to go but the 79-year-old had refused. “I said, I’m asking you to leave, FIFA’s image is terrible. He said he couldn’t leave all of a sudden,” Platini told a news conference.
“There have been too many scandals, FIFA doesn’t deserve to be treated that way,” Platini said after an emergency FIFA meeting in Zurich. He said 45 or 46 of UEFA’s 53 member associations would vote for Jordan’s Prince Ali bin Al Hussein to succeed Blatter today. But it appeared that Blatter commanded enough of FIFA’s 209 member associations and could expect to get a fifth term. Despite FIFA assertions that it was business as usual following the arrest of seven senior figures on US corruption charges, Blatter did not show up at a medical conference yesterday. Agencies
