Saturday, May 30, 2015
A defiant Blatter, who won his fifth term as FIFA president on Friday, has come out fighting against allegations.
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Blatter got 133 out of the 206 votes cast on Friday [EPA] |
Newly re-elected FIFA President Sepp Blatter does not fear being arrested and was typically defiant in his first news conference since a US investigation into corruption reportedly uncovered $150 million in bribes.
Seven high-ranking
FIFA officials were arrested ahead of the football governing body's meeting that saw
Blatter win a fifth term as president.
The Swiss came out fighting on Saturday, implying that the US timed the announcement of a major
corruption probe to try to scupper his re-election bid.
"Arrested for what? Next question," Blatter dismissed curtly, when asked if he feared where the US federal case was heading.
There was a "high-ranking FIFA official" mentioned in the US indictment who wired $10m for apparent bribes to corrupt CONCACAF officials so they would vote for South Africa as the 2010 World Cup host.
"Definitely that is not me, I have no $10m."
Blatter now faces the daunting task of restoring public faith in an organisation tainted by allegations of graft and deeply divided over his leadership.
"I have a great deal of responsibility to restore FIFA's image," he added.
World Cup quotas intact
Meanwhile, FIFA is keeping the continental quotas of World Cup qualifying places for two more tournaments - 2018 in Russia and 2022 in Qatar.
FIFA's executive committee declined to make any changes at a meeting in Zurich, according to Blatter who had earlier encouraged other regions to seek more places, likely at Europe's expense.
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Platini (R) had asked Blatter to step down following the Zurich arrests [Reuters] |
The decision means European football body UEFA keeps its 13 qualifying slots, plus host Russia, at the 32 team tournament in 2018.
Europe will have 13 teams at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Besides those places, Africa has five guaranteed spots, Asia and South America have four each, and there are three spots for the CONCACAF region of North and Central America and the Caribbean.