By Andrew Warshaw
November 19 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter admitted today his organisation was split over the severity of the penalties meted out to six officials caught up in the World Cup bidding scandal.
But he said the fall-out from the Sunday Times investigation into corruption should not adversely affect England’s bid for the 2018 tournament.
FIFA’s Ethics Committee yesterday expelled Amos Adamu of Nigeria for three years and Reynald Temarii of Tahiti for one as well as sanctioning four other senior FIFA members.
Following an emergency meeting of his executive meeting, Blatter told a news conference: “These decisions may not have found the total support of all the members – it would be exaggerating to pretend otherwise.”
“But the executive committee, in assuming its responsibility as the government of FIFA, abides by the decisions handed down.”
Both expelled Executive Committee members seem certain to appeal and Blatter said he was not happy with the way the media had operated.
“Entrapment is not fair,” he said, adding, however, that the expose should not take away votes from England.
In an unprecedented move, Blatter was recently visited personally by Andy Anson and David Dein, chief executive and international President of England’s bid, in an attempt to claw back some of the damage that might have been suffered as a result of the revelations.
The pair followed this up by writing to all members of the Executive Committee distancing themselves from the bribery allegations.
Whether or not the ploy worked, Blatter declared publicly, and for the first time, that England’s campaign team were not to blame for the rumpus.
“Why should this have an influence on the English bid?”
“Human beings taking decision don’t look so much at the documents in front of them so I don’t think they will take into consideration what has been published or not – that’s my opinion.”
Blatter added that while he was uncomfortable with the newspaper sting, FIFA now had a chance to clean up its act.
“I’m not pleased about that [the methods] because this is not very fair but now we have a result it gives us an opportunity to clean a little bit whatever has to be cleaned.
“But I cannot say that it is very fair when you open traps.”
Turning to the ethics committee’s decision to clear Spain/Portugal and Qatar of any collusion allegations through lack of firm evidence, Blatter used a political metaphor – easily applicable to Britain’s coalition government — to justify the verdict.
“You find collusion in politics, in elections…where two parties are enemies during the year but then they go together,” he said.
“That’s collusion – this has not been banned.”
Rather like a school headmaster addressing his subordinate teachers, Blatter said he had made it clear to the executive committee how important it was to show transparency and credibility ahead of December 2 when a series of presidents, prime ministers and sporting ambassadors converge on Zurich in support of their bidding nations.
“I think my message was well understood,” he said.
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