FIFA SCANDAL: Sepp Blatter Resigns As FIFA President

Sepp Blatter a few days ago likened himself to a Swiss mountain goat which keeps on "going and going"

Sepp Blatter has resigned his position as the president of the soccer governing body, FIFA, GRAPHITTI NEWS reports. 
He made the announcement on an unscheduled press conference at the Zurich headquarters of FIFA held by 5.00pmBST.

This comes after several days of spiralling scandal which has seen the indictment of at least 15 FIFA officials including two vice-presidents.

Ahead of the election, there were numerous calls for Blatter’s resignation after a corruption scandal that led to the arrest of seven leading officials of the federation, but he rebuffed the calls and went ahead to contest and win the election.

Now, Blatter acknowledges that his mandate “does not have the support of everybody” and he has called an extraordinary FIFA congress “as soon as possible” to elect a new president.

“My mandate does not appear to be supported by everybody,” he said in Zurich on Tuesday.

“I am very much linked to Fifa and its interests. Those interests are dear to me and this is why I am taking this decision. What counts most to me is the institute of FIFA and football around the world.”

Aside last week’s arrests on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering as part of a US prosecution that also indicted 14 people, Swiss authorities are investigating the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to their hosts. 

Earlier the soccer’s world governing body tried on Tuesday to distance the top deputy to Sepp Blatter, its president, from the heart of a deepening corruption inquiry, responding to allegations that linked Jérôme Valcke, FIFA’s secretary general, to payments made in 2008 that investigators believe amounted to US$10 million in bribes.

In response to an article by The New York Times, FIFA said in a statement that the payments, which are at the center of a United States Department of Justice investigation that led to a 47-count indictment against soccer officials and sports marketing executives, were approved in 2007 by Julio Grondona. Mr. Grondona, who was the chairman of FIFA’s finance committee at the time, died last year.

FIFA also said that the payments were made on behalf of the South African soccer federation as part of a program intended to support “the African diaspora in Caribbean countries,” and acknowledged that FIFA had essentially advanced South Africa the money to make the payment. FIFA, according to its statement, then deducted $10 million from the amount due to South Africa for its hosting of the 2010 World Cup.

Investigators have said that the recipient of the money, Jack Warner, a former FIFA vice president from Trinidad and Tobago who was among those arrested last week, received the money as payment for previously voting, along with other members of his regional confederation, to award the World Cup to South Africa.

In its statement, FIFA said that neither Mr. Valcke, who is Mr. Blatter’s second in command, “nor any other member of FIFA’s senior management were involved in the initiation, approval and implementation” of the payments.

Several United States officials and others briefed on the case, however, said that investigators believed Mr. Valcke had been involved in the transfer. Shortly after FIFA released its statement on Tuesday, a reporter from the Press Association, a British news agency, posted a document online that he said was a 2008 letter from the South African soccer federation to FIFA, providing details of the impending bank transfer. The letter is addressed to Mr. Valcke.

In a brief email to The New York Times on Monday evening, Mr. Valcke denied any involvement in the transfer, writing that he did not authorize such a payment because “based on FIFA’s regulations,” he does not have “the power to do so.”

A review of FIFA’s 2008 statutes, however, indicates that it was the responsibility of the secretary general to at least be aware of such a transfer. According to Article 68.3(b), the secretary general is responsible for “managing and keeping the accounts of FIFA properly.”