Yahoo – AFP,
Tim Witcher, 28 May 2015
 |
Sponsors
are piling pressure on FIFA leader Sepp Blatter to clean up
world football amid
two major corruption scandals (AFP Photo)
|
Zurich
(AFP) - Sponsors piled pressure on FIFA leader Sepp Blatter to clean up world
football as two major corruption scandals overshadowed the start of a congress
Thursday at which he will seek a new term.
The
beleaguered 79-year-old president met with the heads of all six football
confederations on Thursday, according to sources who gave no details about the
talks.
Amid some
calls for him to stand down. Blatter remains favourite to win the presidential
election on Friday however.
Credit card
giant Visa said it would "reassess" its sponsorship of FIFA unless it
takes immediate action after the arrest of top FIFA leaders accused by US
authorities of taking huge bribes.
While Swiss
police are investigating the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia
and Qatar, US documents indicate that South Africa paid bribes to FIFA
officials to secure the 2010 World Cup.
Visa said
that unless FIFA rebuilds a corporate culture with "strong ethical
practices" at its heart, "we have informed them that we will reassess
our sponsorship".
Coca-Cola,
Adidas, McDonald's and Budweiser all spoke out against the corruption scandal.
Corporate backers provide hundreds of millions of dollars to FIFA's finances.
No plan
to question Blatter
FIFA's
annual congress starts in Zurich on Thursday but its leader stayed out of the
public eye as the corruption storm grew.
 |
FBI agents
remove documents from the headquarters of the CONCACAF
soccer organization after
a raid on May 27, 2015 in Miami Beach, Florida
(AFP Photo/Diego Urdaneta)
|
But Swiss
authorities said Thursday there were no plans as yet to question Blatter.
"For
the time being, there are no plans to question the FIFA president," Andre
Marty, a spokesman for the office of Switzerland's attorney general, told AFP
in an email.
UEFA,
Europe's governing body, has called for the presidential vote to be postponed
and was to meet Thursday to decide whether to boycott the election.
"These
events show, once again, that corruption is deeply rooted in FIFA's
culture," UEFA said in a statement.
Some
European leaders even renewed calls for Blatter to resign.
"Sepp
Blatter has to go as FIFA president," said Greg Dyke, chairman of the
English Football Association, which lost out to Russia for the 2018 tournament.
England is
among the major backers of Blatter's only remaining challenger for the
presidency, Prince Ali bin al Hussein, a FIFA vice president from Jordan.
But FIFA
remain adamant that the congress and vote will go ahead.
And African
and Asian confederations have reaffirmed their support for Blatter.
Asian
Football Conferation members hold 47 of the 209 votes in the FIFA election,
behind the Confederation of African Football (56 votes) and UEFA (54).
And both
the AFC and CAF have said they oppose any delay in the elections.
Seven
football officials, including two FIFA vice presidents, remained in Swiss custody
on Thursday after their arrest at the FIFA hotel in Zurich early Wednesday.
Six of the
seven have indicated they will fight extradition to the United States, Swiss
authorities said.
US
authorities said nine football officials in all were among 14 people facing up
to 20 years in jail if found guilty in the long-running corruption case
involving more than $150 million in bribes.
 |
Acting US
Attorney Kelly Currie of the Eastern District of New York speaks
during the
announcement of charges against FIFA officials at a news conference
on May 27,
2015 in New York (AFP Photo/Don Emmert)
|
Fraud
probe goes on
US
authorities indicated that more charges could follow.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin, however, slammed the arrests as an attempt by
Washington to oust Blatter.
"This
is clearly an attempt to block the reelection of Blatter as president of FIFA
and is an extremely serious breach of the principles of how international
organisations work," Putin said in televised comments broadcast Thursday,
accusing the United States of trying to "spread its jurisdiction to other
countries".
Blatter
said it was a "difficult time" for the world body, and added that he
would not tolerate misconduct by FIFA officials.
"Let
me be clear: such misconduct has no place in football and we will ensure that
those who engage in it are put out of the game," Blatter said in a
statement.
FIFA vice
presidents Jeffrey Webb -- the current CONCACAF chief -- and Eugenio Figueredo,
a former head of the South American confederation, were among the seven
arrested by Zurich police.
Jack
Warner, a former vice president, appeared in a Port of Spain court Wednesday
before a judge who set his bail at $394,000, according to Trinidad and Tobago
media.
Warner was
ordered to hand over his passport and check in with police twice a week before
a hearing over whether to extradite him to the United States in July, according
to the reports.
Warner has
denied any wrongdoing. But two of his sons have pleaded guilty to charges
related to the US investigation into bribery and kickbacks involving FIFA
officials and sports marketing firms.
US agents
also raided the Miami headquarters of CONCACAF, the confederation for North and
Central America.
The US
investigation said South African officials paid $10 million in bribes to host
the 2010 tournament. Some bribes were handed over in a briefcase stuffed with
$10,000 bundles of cash.
But the
South African government on Thursday denied any wrongdoing.
"When
we concluded the FIFA World Cup here in South Africa we got a clean audit
report," said Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, who was on the local
organising committee.
"There
has never been any suggestion that anything untoward happened in South
Africa."
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