Blatter: Scandal must be sorted before election
Reuters - Wednesday 11 May 2011, 16:55
MANCHESTER - FIFA president Sepp Blatter
wants the vote-selling scandal which has damaged attempts by
world football's governing body to clean up its image to be sorted
out by the time he stands for re-election on June 1.
Former English FA chairman David Triesman has accused FIFA
executive committee members Ricardo Teixeira, Jack Warner,
Nicolas Leoz and Worawi Makudi of wanting incentives to vote for
England's ultimately unsuccessful 2018 World Cup bid.
"Let's take some time to do it but we have to do it very
fast, because we have a congress to come and we have to deal
with this matter before the congress," Blatter told Al Jazeera
on Wednesday.
"We cannot just say to kick it out of the mind of FIFA and
we will deal after... no, we have to do it now, immediately, we
have exactly three weeks to do so, so we must accelerate the
movement in the good or in the bad."
FIFA wrote to the FA on Wednesday asking it to provide
evidence to back up Triesman's statements, made at the previous
day's British parliamentary inquiry into why the bid failed.
Committee members sought to clear their names over
allegations that have stunned Blatter three weeks before the man
who has vowed to "clean FIFA" is due to stand against Qatari
Mohamed Bin Hammam for football's top job.
The vote will be taken at the FIFA Congress in Zurich, by
which time Blatter hopes to have got to the bottom of the latest
corruption issue to hit his organisation.
A total of eight of FIFA's 24-strong key-decision making
executive committee have now been accused by the British media
and British parliamentary representatives of corruption,
including two banned by FIFA last year over reports of
vote-selling.
Blatter has distanced himself from executive committee
members saying he does not choose them and that FIFA would react
immediately against anyone in breach of the ethics code rules.
'PURE INVENTION'
Those named at the inquiry have denied Triesman's charges.
In an interview with Trinidadian newspaper Newsday, Warner
said: "First of all, I laugh like hell because it took those
guys from December to now (to know) that I have 2.5 million
pounds I believe. I never asked anybody for
anything."
Triesman had accused Warner of asking for money to be
"channelled through me" for an education centre in his home
country Trinidad and Tobago. Warner said he had shown English FA
officials a potential site but nothing had ever progressed.
Thai FA president Makudi joined Warner in denying asking for
bribes, saying Triesman's claim that he had wanted television
rights for a proposed Thailand v England friendly was untrue.
"I have never discussed with Lord Triesman the issue of TV
rights. If the match takes place, FIFA regulations will apply,"
Makudi told Reuters by telephone. The FA scrapped plans for the
match in the end.
South America's Conmebol president Leoz has declined to
comment on Triesman's claim that he had requested a knighthood
in return for his vote, while Brazil's CBF chief Teixeira is
starting legal proceedings against Triesman.
The 2018 bid was not the only one embroiled in corruption
charges as Members of Parliament involved in the inquiry also
revealed the names of two other FIFA executive committee members
accused of being paid to vote for Qatar's successful 2022 bid.
FIFA vice-president Issa Hayatou of Cameroon and Jacques
Anouma of Ivory Coast were accused of being paid $1.5 million to
vote for Qatar, a charge "categorically denied" by Confederation
of African Football (CAF) president Hayatou on Wednesday.
"The president of CAF said all these accusations brought
against him are pure invention and an attempt to discredit him,"
CAF said on its website, referring to
allegations which came from evidence submitted to the inquiry by
the Sunday Times newspaper.