Sepp Blatter will run for a fifth, four-year term as FIFA president.
Buoyed by a successful World Cup in Brazil and UEFA President Michel Platini opting not to stand in next year’s election, the 78-year-old Blatter believes he has the backing to win again.
“I will make an official declaration definitely in September now when we have the executive committee,” the Swiss official said in a pre-recorded interview shown Monday at the SoccerEx conference. “I will inform the executive committee. It’s a question of respect also to say then to the football family, ‘Yes I will be ready. I will be a candidate.'”
In response to FIFA’s worst corruption scandals, Blatter had pledged before his re-election in 2011 that his current term would be his last. But he had been edging toward another run ever since.
Blatter, who has been FIFA president since 1998, had previously stopped short of confirming his candidacy for the May election. Despite ongoing corruption scandals engulfing FIFA and opposition within UEFA, Blatter appears to have retained the support of most national federations.
“A mission is never finished, and my mission is not finished,” Blatter said. “I got (from) the last congress in Sao Paulo not only the impression but the support of the majority, a huge majority of national associations asking ‘Please go on, be our president also in future.'”
Any potential challengers must have worked in football for at least two of the last five years, and have until late January to gather the support of at least five national associations. The secret ballot is scheduled for May 29 in Zurich, and former FIFA international relations director Jerome Champagne is the only other person to say he will stand.
FIFA has been mired in corruption scandals that have led to the exit of many former executive committee members, but Blatter has emerged largely unscathed – despite being booed at many stadiums he attends.
“(I) just ask for a little bit more respect and fair play and perhaps also the truth, although this is not so easy because it is not such good information,” Blatter said. “If you ask me how I deal with that, at the beginning it was very heavy and I was suffering.
“But now my situation has been cleared and cleaned by all possible means outside of FIFA, inside of FIFA. So therefore I am confident and I am going forward as an optimist. Just to say, optimists live better and perhaps they live longer.”
FIFA faces a turbulent future as it deals with the fallout from awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar. FIFA last week received three reports from ethics investigator Michael Garcia and his team after their year-long probe of alleged corruption in the bidding contests.
If the Middle East’s first World Cup is not taken from Qatar, FIFA must determine how the event can be moved from the summer heat. Blatter canceled a planned visit to SoccerEx in Manchester to stay in Zurich, where football leaders were meeting Monday to discuss the potential disruption to the international calendar caused by starting the 2022 World Cup in January or November.
“We have already said we cannot play in summer in this heat in Qatar, then we have to play in winter,” Blatter said. “Now we are making this consultation.”
The more pressing challenge is resisting calls from some British and German politicians to take the World Cup from Russia or boycott the tournament as punishment for President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Ukraine.
“A boycott in sport never has had any benefit,” Blatter said. “Let us wait and see the geo-political situation and FIFA shall not intervene with politics. But for the time being we are working with Russia.”
Source : Sapa-AP /jlb
Blatter praises Brazil for great World Cup
By Mike Collett
MANCHESTER England (Reuters) – FIFA president Sepp Blatter always believed this year’s World Cup would not be affected by the civil disturbances that blighted the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil and he said he was delighted his prediction came true.
Blatter, 78, described the tournament on Monday as “great” and the “best World Cup” he had been involved in during an interview recorded for delegates at the Soccerex Global convention.
“It was, in my opinion, the best World Cup I have ever seen in the terms of quality of the football and the ambience it created in all the cities, in all the stadia .. Really it went under the skin,” he said.
The build-up to the finals was dominated by widespread fears that the violence and riots that swept through 80 Brazilian cities during and after the Confederations Cup warm-up event in the summer of 2013 would be repeated during the World Cup and that the stadiums would not be ready in time.
But Blatter said: “There was the question that the social unrest would start again but it was my feeling and my prediction that once the World Cup kicked off, the Brazilian nation would be fully in the game. And this happened.
“It was a great and bright World Cup.
“I was not worried about the stadium construction either because its my 10th World Cup working for FIFA and there’s always a last minute problem to arrange something.”
But he said he was surprised with the way Brazil’s public stayed with their team even after they were crushed 7-1 in the semi-finals by eventual champions Germany.
“It was a surprise, but because they lost by such a high score there was no question as to who was the better team. I think if the result had been by penalty kicks or whatever, the reaction would have been different.”
He also praised the coaches for their approach to the games.
“We have to give compliments to the technical directors and the coaches because they played to win. In past World Cups they didn’t want to lose,” Blatter added.
“The players were well-prepared, they are all artists now. It was just great.”
