May 9 – Sepp Blatter, who continues to speak out about the way FIFA has been operating since he was forced to step down before being banned from the game, has urged his old organisation to allow Morocco to take part in the 2026 World Cup ballot.
Morocco’s World Cup organisers are anxiously awaiting the report of FIFA’s evaluation task force which has the power to recommend throwing them out of the process before the vote takes place at FIFA Congress on June 13.
But Blatter has re-iterated his view that the Task Force has too much power.
“They cannot do that,” Blatter told the BBC. “Even if one of the candidates is not a good one, they have the right to be at the congress. That’s why I’m advocating that Morocco has to go to the congress. Morocco cannot be kicked out before the congress.”
Blatter has also criticised FIFA for continuing to allow multiple World Cup hosts, most immediately the United States, Canada and Mexico who are jointly bidding against Morocco for 2026.
“To have three big countries together… they have proven they can host it alone, so why are the three together?”
The World Cup has only been staged in more than one country once when it was co-hosted by South Korea and Japan in 2002, a tournament Blatter says was a “nightmare in organisation”.
He says joint bids from Libya and Tunisia for the 2010 tournament, and Spain and Portugal, and Belgium and the Netherlands for 2018 were rejected because of a decision from FIFA not to consider a “combined organisation”.
As he continues to try and clear his name after being banned for ethics breaches over that undeclared CHF2 million “disloyal payment” to ex-UEFA boss Michel Platini, Blatter added; “What I have done – or what we have done? We have decided to pay a salary which we promised to pay him and it has been in all the books of FIFA. What’s not moral about paying a salary to somebody? It will not stand in a tribunal, absolutely not. There was no reason to suspend me – history will show it.”
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