Corruption | Blatter calls crisis meeting, skips 3rd public appearance

Swiss FIFA President Joseph (Sepp) Blatter

FIFA President Sepp Blatter chaired an emergency meeting with continental soccer bodies yesterday while staying out of public view himself.
Blatter called together leaders of FIFA’s six regions as world soccer is rocked by an American federal racketeering case.
“There was a meeting today with the president with the representatives from the confederations to discuss the current situation,” FIFA spokeswoman Delia Fischer said in a statement.
Blatter is resisting calls from European soccer body UEFA to postpone today’s FIFA presidential election by six months.
UEFA has called the dual American and Swiss federal probes a “disaster for FIFA,” and is supporting Blatter’s election opponent, FIFA vice president Prince Ali bin al-­Hussein of Jordan.
Blatter has continued to avoid appearing in public since Swiss federal agencies raided FIFA headquarters and a luxury Zurich hotel early Wednesday. He missed giving a scheduled speech to open a session of FIFA’s medical conference in a Zurich hotel — his third skipped public appearance within 24 hours.
FIFA chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak told delegates that Blatter has to “manage the situation.”
Two FIFA vice presidents were among seven men arrested at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. In a separate investigation, Swiss federal agencies seized evidence at FIFA headquarters for a probe of the 2018-2022 World Cup bidding contests.
Blatter skipped two meetings of continental soccer organizations from Africa and South America on Wednesday. He typically would attend those ahead of today’s annual congress of FIFA’s 209 member federations.
Late Wednesday, FIFA issued a statement on behalf of Blatter where the president insisted he was determined to root out misconduct.
The FIFA president would also usually follow protocol and attend yesterday’s UEFA meeting. He was scheduled to appear later in the day. Graham Dunbar, Sports Writer, Zurich, AP

visa becomes first fifa sponsor to warn it could jump ship

Worried that their reputations will be tarnished by their links to FIFA, major sponsors are demanding that soccer’s global governing body clean up its act, with Visa even warning it is prepared to jump ship. Coca-Cola also made it clear it is unhappy with the scandals rocking the organization it and others support with millions of dollars a year. Visa provided the most acute criticism, saying it expects the organization to take “swift and immediate steps to address” its issues. “This starts with rebuilding a culture with strong ethical practices in order to restore the reputation of the games for fans everywhere,” it said in a statement late Wednesday. “Should FIFA fail to do so, we have informed them that we will reassess our sponsorship.”

putin accuses us of meddling into fifa affairs

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of meddling in FIFA’s affairs and hinted that it was part of an attempt to take the 2018 World Cup away from his country. Putin said in televised comments yesterday that he found it “odd” that the probe was launched at the request of U.S. officials for crimes which do not involve its citizens and did not happen in the United States. Corruption charges in the U.S. were announced Wednesday against 14 people, with at least two of them holding American citizenship. In a separate probe, Swiss prosecutors opened criminal proceedings into FIFA’s awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar.