Sepp Blatter fights suspension amid FIFA turmoil

This news has been read 7538 times!

ZURICH, Oct 9, (Agencies): FIFA president Sepp Blatter appealed against the 90 day ban that forced him out of office, a report said Friday as world football’s sleaze-tainted governing body headed into months of turmoil over how to find a new leader. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) became the latest regional body to demand an emergency meeting of the FIFA executive after the suspension of Blatter, UEFA president Michel Platini and FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke.

The row over Blatter’s suspension took a fresh twist on Friday as FIFA’s ethics watchdog rejected the 79-year-old’s claims he was not allowed to give evidence before he was banned, saying he was given “all his rights”.

The New York Times reported that Blatter had complained that he only found out about his suspension after it was made public.

Blatter’s lawyers demanded a full hearing to argue his case and also asked to see the case file used by the FIFA ethics committee in deciding the suspension, the Times said.

But ethics committee spokesman Andreas Bantel said Blatter had been given the chance to put his case on Oct 1.

UEFA chief Michel Platini, hit with the same suspension on Thursday, also “had the very same rights” at an interview on the same day, Bantel said.

Platini also plans to appeal against his 90 day suspension. Platini is a leading candidate in FIFA’s presidential election in February, alongside South Korean tycoon Chung Mong-Joon who was banned from football activities for six years in the ethics committee purge.

Blatter, who has led FIFA since 1998, was provisionally banned by the body’s ethics watchdog as Swiss prosecutors investigate him for criminal mismanagement. Platini was named in the Swiss inquiry over a two million dollar payment he received from FIFA.

The crisis at FIFA has been building since May, when US authorities announced charges against 14 officials and sports marketing executives over bribery allegations amounting to more than $150 million.

Asia’s powerful football chief Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa wrote to acting FIFA president Issa Hayatou calling for an emergency meeting of the body’s executive committee.

FIFA presidential candidate and former vice-president Chung Mong-joon has said he will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after he was banned for six years by the ethics committee of soccer’s world governing body on Thursday.

The South Korean described the ruling in a statement on Friday as a “shameful attempt” to punish his open criticism of FIFA, which is mired in the worst corruption scandal in its 111-year history, and said it was a blatant miscarriage of justice.

FIFA’s acting president Issa Hayatou insisted he was fit to fill in for suspended Sepp Blatter despite long-running health problems, in a statement sent to AFP on Friday.

The 69-year-old president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has taken temporary charge of the sport’s world governing body as it wrestles with mounting sleaze allegations.

He took over on Thursday after Blatter was suspended for 90 days as Swiss prosecutors investigate him for criminal mismanagement in the latest blow to FIFA’s already tarnished image.

This news has been read 7538 times!