Zurich: FIFA President Sepp Blatter has been provisionally suspended for 90 days following the Swiss Attorney General’s opening of criminal proceedings against the FIFA strongman, according to reports in the BBC.
The ethics committee tribunal is also deciding whether to take action against UEFA leader Michael Platini and former FIFA vice president Chung Mong-Joon, both candidates to take over from Blatter.
Chung hit out at Blatter on Wednesday, calling him “a hypocrite and a liar” and threatening a legal case for embezzlement of FIFA funds.
The 79-year-old Swiss official Blatter, who has ruled FIFA for 17 years, insisted in a German magazine interview however that he would not be forced out of office before an election to be held in February.
FIFA has kept the activities of its independent ethics committee cloaked in secrecy in recent months as accusations of corruption have mounted.
But a Senegalese member of the committee’s adjudicatory chamber, FIFA’s highest court, said it started a five-day meeting on Monday with Blatter and the other two officials on the agenda.
Abdoulaeye Makhtar Diop, a former Senegal sports minister, said in a statement: “the members will focus on the topics of the Swiss Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, the Frenchman Michel Platini, president of UEFA, and the South Korean Chung Mong-Joon.” FIFA officials refused to comment on the disclosure. (AFP)
