FIFA suspends Blatter provisionally for 90 days

It was always heading to one conclusion. And yesterday, the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) Ethics Committee suspended the world football ruling body’s president, Sepp Blatter, albeit provisionally for 90 days.

According to a BBC report, members of FIFA’s ethics committee have been meeting this week after the Swiss attorney general opened criminal proceedings against Blatter (79) last month.

Blatter is accused of signing a contract “unfavourable” to football’s governing body and making a “disloyal payment” to Uefa President Michel Platini (60).

Platini, who wants to succeed the Swiss, who has run FIFA since 1998, denies any wrongdoing.
The head of FIFA’s ethics adjudicatory chamber, Hans Joachim Eckhert, will likely take a final decision today.
BBC Sport quotes Blatter’s adviser, Klauss Stohlker, who confirmed the development, as saying “the news was communicated to the president this afternoon. He is calm. Remember he is the father of the ethics committee.
“This is provisional for 90 days but he is not actually suspended. The committee has not yet made a decision and their meetings continue.”

Meanwhile, Blatter has continued to claim innocence of any wrongdoing. He told a German magazine on Tuesday that he was being “condemned without any evidence for wrongdoing”.
The ethics committee has not taken any decision on Platini.

Among other allegations, the investigation is looking at issues in the 2005 TV rights deal between FIFA and Jack Warner, the former president of Concacaf, the governing body of football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, as well as a two million Swiss francs (£1.35m) that Platini received in 2011 for working for Blatter.

Platini claims the payment was “valid compensation” for work he did for FIFA more than nine years previously. He has provided information to the criminal investigation but said he has done so as a witness.

The prosecutors say he is being treated as “in between a witness and an accused person” as they investigate corruption at world football’s governing body.
Blatter won a fifth consecutive FIFA presidential election on 29 May but, following claims of corruption, announced his decision to step down on June 2. He is due to finish his term at a FIFA extraordinary congress on February 26.