Dubai: Embattled Fifa President Sepp Blatter said the corruption scandal surrounding the world football body had brought shame and humiliation to the sport.
In a defiant speech at the opening of Fifa’s 65th annual Congress in Zurich — at which he expects to be re-elected president for a fifth term today — Blatter said there could be no place for corruption of any kind in the game.
Seeking to distance himself from the scandal in which seven senior Fifa figures were on Wednesday arrested in Switzerland on US corruption charges, he said: “I cannot monitor everyone all the time. If people want to do wrong, they will also try to hide it.” He added that Fifa had lost trust and must earn it back and that more needed to be done to make sure everyone in football behaves responsibly and ethically.
Blatter has defied widespread calls to stand down in light of the corruption scandal engulfing the organisation.
European football chief Michel Platini directly challenged Blatter at an emergency meeting of confederation leaders earlier yesterday. “I asked him to resign — enough is enough, Sepp. He listened to me but he told me it is too late,” Platini told a press conference. “I say these things with tears in my eyes. I don’t like it this way. But there are just too many scandals.”
Others present at the meeting did not back his call, Platini added, but he pleaded with Fifa members to join a revolt against the organisation and support Blatter’s sole rival Prince Ali Bin Al Hussain of Jordan.
The crisis has also created political waves, with UK Prime Minister David Cameron and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius among those to call for Blatter to quit.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country will host the 2018 World Cup, accused the US of meddling outside its jurisdiction. Putin said the arrests in Switzerland were an “obvious attempt” to prevent Blatter’s re-election.
