Blatter is re-elected as Fifa boss, but scandal rages on
Challenger Prince Ali concedes contest after second round
UNDER fire Fifa president Sepp Blatter has been re-elected despite international pressure for him to step down after the federation was rocked by a £100 million corruption scandal.
He was re-elected after Prince Ali bin al-Hussein pulled out of the running in the second round of voting.
Prime minister David Cameron joined calls for Mr Blatter to resign after 18 people were arrested as US and Swiss authorities launched investigations into kickbacks, bribes and “rampant corruption” dating back decades.
But the Swiss bureaucrat, 79, was determined to hang on to his position and he is set to stay at the helm of the world football governing body for another four years.
In his acceptance speech on winning the Fifa presidential election, Sepp Blatter said: “I take full responsibility to bring back Fifa. We can do it and I am convinced we can do it.”
Mr Dyke backed the idea of a co-ordinated European boycott of the World Cup.
“What there is no point in is one or two countries saying ‘We’re not going to take part’ because they will carry on with the tournament without them and that is pretty unfair on the fans,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
“But if Uefa as a group said ‘Look, unless you get this sorted we are not going to be in the World Cup’ then I think that we would join them.”
Mr Dyke said things “look ominous” for Mr Blatter.
“I hope he doesn’t win but if he does I think the events of this week have turned him into a diminished figure and I can’t see him lasting more than a year or two,” he said.
“Mr Blatter’s statement yesterday in which he basically said ‘Leave it to me, I will clean it up” – nobody is going to believe that.
“And I think it is quite ominous for him when the attorney general in America says this is only the beginning, not the end.”
Asked why there had not been prosecutions brought by the UK, he said: “You’d have to ask the British prosecuting authorities. I think the government, the department for culture, media and sport, has got all that information.
“If they showed an inclination, we would obviously support, help and give them any evidence we have,” he added – though he admitted a lot of it amounted to no more than “hearsay and gossip”.