Sepp Blatter to adopt godfather role at Fifa in spite of any ban

Blatter may remain part of Fifa despite corruption charges

SEPP BLATTER is in line to become a "godfather" figure within FIFA despite the prospect of a lengthy ban from the game hanging over his head.

 

Klaus Stöhlker, his official advisor during his successful presidential campaign last year, said Blatter could be given the title of honorary president of international football's governing body after next February's elections to find his successor.

Speaking exclusively in Channel 5 documentary Sepp Blatter Exposed: The Fall of FIFA, airing on Monday at 9pm, Stöhlker said he believes Blatter would accept the role.

He said: "I think the possibility is still in discussion - it's depending on the structure which follows the FIFA presidential election next year. I think as an honorary president you are something like a godfather, but he's clever enough and intelligent enough to let his follower go ahead and run FIFA."

 

Former England defender Sol Campbell tells the programme that FIFA should be abolished. He said: "We need to dismantle it, dissolve it, and start again. It's rotten to its core."

Peter Shilton, England's most capped player and goalkeeper for two decades said a FIFA boycott may prove to be the only option if FIFA fails to act: "Changes have to be made there's no doubt about that... I think they've lost a lot of their credibility. If that doesn't happen, what else can you do except look at trying to boycott and that would be the very last resort, but I think we've got to see that changes are being made. We can't just carry on like this."

He added: "I am very angry actually about it all, because obviously any governing body you expect to be clean, especially in sport. You expect people involved... to love the sport they're involved with."

 

Sol Campbell has been one of many footballers to speak out against Fifa after recent revelations

Stöhlker also confirmed that Blatter is now recovered from his reported health scare: "It was a nervous breakdown, and at a private location and it was not football which made this... and so he went into hospital and the doctors advised him to have a check-up and I visited him soon after, but he is fine now."

However FIFA's ethics committee has concluded its investigations into Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini and is understood to be seeking bans of several years for the pair.

A statement from the investigatory chamber of the committee said final reports had been submitted containing "requests for sanctions" over a £1.3million payment made to Platini by FIFA in 2011.

It is understood this request will be for bans of several years based on four potential ethics code breaches: mismanagement, conflict of interest, false accounting and non co-operation with or criticising the ethics committee.

There was no written agreement for the 2million Swiss franc payment - Blatter and Platini say it was an oral agreement made between them 13 years previously. It is also being investigated by Swiss legal authorities as a "disloyal payment", and the fact they did not report it the outstanding debt to FIFA's financial department in the intervening years could be a case of false accounting.

 

The next step is for Hans-Joachin Eckert, the German judge who heads the adjudicatory panel of the ethics committee, to decide whether to summon Platini and Blatter to disciplinary hearings. He is likely to make that decision early next week after studying the investigators' report.

Blatter and Platini had appeals against their bans dismissed by FIFA's appeals committee earlier this week and on Friday the latter - who wants to stand to be Blatter's replacement in February - took his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

An ethics committee statement said: "The investigatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee has submitted its final reports containing requests for sanctions against Joseph Blatter and Michel Platini to the adjudicatory chamber chaired by Hans-Joachim Eckert.

"The final report regarding Joseph S. Blatter was submitted by Robert Torres, the report regarding Michel Platini was submitted by Vanessa Allard. For reasons linked to privacy rights and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the chamber will not publish details of the concluded reports and the requested sanctions against the two officials."

Blatter said earlier this week that he was disappointed to have lost his initial appeal and that there was no evidence of improper conduct relating to the payment to Platini.

A spokesman for Eckert said in a statement: "The adjudicatory chamber of the independent ethics committee chaired by Hans-Joachim Eckert has today received the final reports concerning the investigations against Joseph S. Blatter and Michel Platini carried out by the investigatory chamber.

"The adjudicatory chamber will study the reports carefully and decide in due course about whether to institute formal adjudicatory proceedings against Joseph S. Blatter and Michel Platini."