By Andrew Warshaw in Manchester
September 8 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter will tell his executive committee later this month that he will definitely stand for a fifth term of office next year, finally formalising what he had all but confirmed during months of public speeches across the globe.
In his first major interview since the World Cup, presented in recorded form at the Soccerex convention in Manchester, Blatter said he would follow protocol by giving details of his decision to put himself forward as a candidate at the exco meeting on September 25-26 in Zurich.
“A mission is never finished and my mission is not finished,” said Blatter, not for the first time. “I have told this to FIFA Congress and the congresses of the confederations in Sao Paulo [in June] and then I got not only the impression of, but the support of, the huge majority of national associations asking me: ‘Please go on to be our president in future.’
“Now I will make an official declaration in September when we have our next executive committee meeting. This is a matter of respect that I should inform the executive committee that I will be ready, I will be a candidate.”
Blatter said he was not surprised by UEFA president Michel Platini’s announcement two weeks ago that he would not contest the FIFA presidency and instead remain at the helm of European football.
But he threw in a potentially intriguing development by revealing that Platini had told him someone else would eventually come forward to take him on in May next year.
“I was not surprised because in private conversations I have had with Michel Platini before during and after the World Cup he has confirmed he would not be a candidate … but that there would be someone who would be a contender.”
Although little else was new in Blatter’s taped address, he re-iterated his opposition to calls for a boycott of the 2018 Russia World Cup – and insisted the 2022 World Cup would remain in Qatar.
His speech to Soccerex delegates came on the day FIFA was hosting its first Task Force meeting, involving a range of stakeholders, to examine which time of the year to stage Qatar 2022, one of the reasons Blatter was unable to appear in Manchester in person.
Blatter said the various parties were being brought together in Zurich “to identify what is the best possible solution and when is the best possible moment to play in Qatar. But that decision is not yet taken. Definitely not.”
“And concerning the other one in 2018, in Russia…there are already some voices coming out about 2018 talking about a boycott – a boycott in sport never has had any benefit. Let us wait and see the geo-political situation and FIFA shall not intervene with politics. We are monitoring that but not interfering.”
Turning to ethics committee investigator Michael Garcia’s 350-page report into possible corruption surrounding the entire World Cup bid process, Blatter would not be drawn on what penalties might or might not be imposed by Hans-Joachim Eckart, the German judge who heads the adjudicatory chamber of the committee and who will decide on sanctions. “He will take a decision which will be communicated to the FIFA executive committee and then to the world”.
In the 40-minute interview, Blatter repeated his call for points deductions and elimination from competitions for clubs guilty of racism and expanded on his intention to allow team coaches to have two tennis-style appeals each for wrong refereeing decisions during matches.
“I will bring it to the attention (of the law-making International FA Board) and perhaps we will find a league, a professional or semi-professional league, they will try to do it. It can only be done where there is television coverage of all the matches. Or in a FIFA competition, maybe in a youth competition … so we could test such challenge calls.”
Asked how he dealt with constant criticism that is thrown at him for the way he runs FIFA, primarily from western media organisations, Blatter said a little more respect would go down well.
Repeating, as he enjoys doing at every opportunity, that he is still a member of the international sports writers’ organisation AIPS as an honorary member, he made it clear his name had never been officially cited in any of the scandals that have marred FIFA.
“I just ask for a little bit more respect and fair play. If you ask me how I deal with that, at the beginning it was very heavy and I was suffering. But now my situation has been cleared and cleaned by all possible means outside of FIFA, inside of FIFA, so therefore I am confident and I am going forward as an optimist.”
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