Blatter turns down invitation to appear before British MPs

By Andrew Warshaw

May 24 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter has turned down a chance to appear before British MPs to explain his plans for reforming football’s world governing body.

MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport committee, who recently made public fresh corruption allegations involving six of FIFA’s Executive Committee, invited the Swiss to attend one of its sessions but has been told this is not possible.

FIFA is focusing on their own investigation into claims, contained in a Sunday Times submission to the committee, that two Executive Committee members were paid $1.5 million (£917,000) to vote for Qatar 2022 and that a further four sought sweeteners to back England 2018.

A FIFA spokesman said that there was therefore “no need” for Blatter to attend the Committee.

FIFA members Issa Hayatou of Cameroon and Jacques Anouma from the Ivory Coast have denied the claims, as have Qatar’s World Cup bid team in a 2,000-word statement.

England has already decided to abstain at next week’s FIFA Presidential election and it was always a tall order to expect Blatter, who has already met Football Association chairman David Bernstein, to come to London and appear before a Committee whose inquiry is supposed to be about the governance of football in the UK rather than globally.

Not only that. Blatter recently accused the British media of sour grapes over England’s failure to secure the 2018 World Cup.

Blatter, however, insists reforming FIFA is his top priority, a pledge he repeated in a round-table discussion last week attended by insideworldfootball.

Having already gained Executive Committee backing from five of football’s six continents, and with rival candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam increasingly embroiled in the Qatar corruption allegations, it will take a major upset for Blatter to be ousted on June 1.

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