Wednesday, October 7, 2015

FIFA PRESIDENT SEPP BLATTER SUSPENDED FOR 90 DAYS

Sepp Blatter: Fifa president facing 90-day suspension

Fifa president Sepp Blatter is facing a 90-day provisional suspension.




Fifa President


Members of Fifa's ethics committee have recommended the sanction after the Swiss attorney general opened criminal proceedings against the 79-year-old.

He is accused of signing a contract unfavourable to football's governing body and making a disloyal payment to UEFA president Michel Platini.

Blatter denies any wrongdoing and his lawyers said he had not been notified of any action.

European football's chief Platini - who wants to succeed Blatter - has said the payment was "valid compensation" from his time working under the Swiss more than nine years ago.

The investigatory chamber of Fifa's ethics committee has requested the ban and a final decision is likely to be made on Thursday by Hans Joachim Eckhert, the head of Fifa's ethics adjudicatory chamber.

Blatter's adviser Klauss Stohlker had said the Fifa president was calm after being told the news, but a statement from his legal representatives denied this.








Sepp Blatter



The investigation is centred on allegations believed to be around a 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.

The ethics committee had been meeting in Zurich since Monday and have yet to make a decision on Platini.

It is also examining a payment of two million Swiss francs (£1.35m) that Platini received in 2011 for working for Blatter.

The Frenchman has provided information to the criminal investigation but said he has done so as a witness.

Swiss prosecutors said he is being treated as in between a witness and an accused person as they investigate corruption at world football's governing body.

The latest development came hours after former Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon, who is also under investigation by Fifa's ethics committee, told medias that his campaign to succeed Blatter was being "smeared".

Blatter won a fifth consecutive Fifa presidential election on 29 May but, following claims of corruption, announced his decision to step down on 2 June. He is due to finish his term at a Fifa extraordinary congress on 26 February.

Fifa





Another top FIFA official, Jerome Valcke, the organization's secretary general, is currently suspended pending an investigation into ticket fraud allegations.




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