Blatter rejects calls to resign
Defiant FIFA president moving ahead with election.
As defiant as ever, Sepp Blatter resisted calls to resign as FIFA president Thursday and deflected blame for the massive bribery and corruption scandal engulf ing soccer ’s world governing body.
“We, or I, cannot monitor everyone all of the time,” Blatter said in his first public remarks on the crisis that has further tainted his leadership on the eve of his bid for a fifth term as president.
Blatter, 79, insisted he could restore trust in world soccer after a pair of corrupti on investigations brought “shame and humiliation” on his organization and the world’s most popular sport.
“We cannot allow the reputation of football and FIFA to be dragged through the mud any longer,” he said. “It has to stop here and now.”
Despite a tide of criticism and pressure on him to leave, Blatter is moving ahead with a presidential election today that is likely to bring him another four years in office as one of them most powerful men in sports.
“The events of yester- day have cast a long shadow over football,” he said in a speech to open FIFA’s two-day congress.
Blatter refused to back down af ter European soccer body UEFA demanded Thursday that he quit following the latest — and most serious — allegations to discredit FIFA during his 17-year reign.
“Enough is enough,” UEFA President Michel Platini sai d. “People no longer want him anymore and I don’t want him anymore, either. ”
Blatter, who is expected to win today’s el ection agai nst Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, is coming under increasing scrutiny amid U.S. and Swiss federal investigations into high-level corruption at FIFA.
A U.S. Justice Department investigation accused 14 international soccer officials or sports marketing executives of bribery, racketeering, fraud and money-laundering over two decades in connection with marketing rights worth hundreds of millions of dollars awarded for tournaments in North and South America.
Seven officials — including two FIFA vice presidents and members of its finance committee — remained in custody in Zurich on Thursday.
Blatter was not implicated in the indic tment.