UPDATE — 8.00pm: Soccer heads from around the world are currently meeting in Zurich to decide whether the sport needs a new president to replace Sepp Blatter.
We’ll bring you the result as soon as we have it. In the meantime, here’s what has happened so far today:
‘We need to fix FIFA right now’
Sepp Blatter told members of world football’s governing body today that they must help “fix FIFA right now” amid allegations of corruption.
“Join us in putting FIFA back on the right track where the boats will stop rocking and go calmly into port,” the FIFA president told the 65th FIFA congress in Zurich.
“It’s a matter of trust, commitment and having the will to do it. “Let’s go for it — let’s do this immediately.” On Wednesday, seven high-ranking FIFA officials were arrested in Zurich in dawn raids by Swiss police acting at US request in the latest corruption scandal to rock the body.
“The guilty ones are individuals, not the whole organisation,” insisted the 79-year-old Blatter, who is bidding for a fifth term as FIFA president with the vote to take place later on Friday.
Blatter suggested the arrests in Switzerland may have been timed to have an impact on the congress.
“I am not going use the word ‘coincidence’, but I will use a small question mark over the timing,” he added.
Allegations of corruption have blighted FIFA since they awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals to Russia and Qatar respectively.
“If two other countries had emerged from the envelopes we wouldn’t have had these problems, but we can’t go back in time,” Blatter lamented. —
source:AFP
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 