A demonstrator wearing a Sepp Blatter mask takes part in a protest against the condition of workers in Qatar, on the sidelines of the 65th Fifa congress on in Zurich. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
A demonstrator wearing a Sepp Blatter mask takes part in a protest against the condition of workers in Qatar, on the sidelines of the 65th Fifa congress on in Zurich. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
David Gill said today that he will step down from Fifa’s executive committee if Sepp Blatter wins Friday’s presidential election. Speaking on Sky News this afternoon, Gill said:
I was delighted when Uefa voted me in. What’s changed my mind? Seismic events yesterday. Joining [Fifa] would be futile and that would not be right for me. I can categorically state that in Prince Ali we have a candidate. It would be a new Fifa.
There’s no way the president, who has worked for Fifa for many many years, can ignore [corruption allegations]. He has to move on. If I was in that situation i would. I can’t see how that cannot be the right decision.
For president Blatter not to resign based on what happened yesterday is indicative of the problem. He disagrees and that’s his prerogative.
Does Gill not think he can bring change from inside Fifa?
No, when I went for it, I thought that would be the case. Uefa have 8 votes, roughly a third. That is a good platform could effect that change. Things will not change until there is a new leader of football and world football is crying out for it.
He refused to speculate on whether Uefa would encourage a boycott of the 2018 World Cup.
So after crisis meetings at Fifa HQ, and a personal plea from the Uefa president Michel Platini, Sepp Blatter has resisted calls to step down. Uefa will back his challenger, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein. Here’s the latest from our reporters in Zurich and London:
Fifa president Sepp Blatter is to press ahead with his bid for a fifth term at the head of football’s scandal-hit world governing body, rebuffing a personal plea for him to quit from the head of the game in Europe.
Uefa, European football’s governing body, ruled out seeking a postponement of Friday’s election and will instead back Blatter’s challenger, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan.
Blatter made his decision to stay after a series crisis meetings at Fifa HQ with representatives of the six regional football confederations. He rejected a face-to-face demand from the president of Uefa, Michel Platini, for his resignation.
“I asked him to resign: enough is enough, Sepp. He listened to me but he told me it is too late,” Platini told a news conference in Zurich. Platini said he was “disgusted” and “sickened” by the scandal gripping the organisation.
There’s a feeling of impotence in the European football associations because they believe Blatter is going to sail through and be elected. The idea of them pressing some sort of D-day and boycotting the world cup, I just cant see there being support for that.
It’s absolutely staggering – reading the indictment you could drown yourself with the detail, then you step back and think this is really happening and this is huge. In the past in general we’ve just had reports and rumours and investigative journalism.
[Fifa] feel that they’re not rocked by it. Blatter has got support by African football associations. In the world of Fifa it is not impossible that Blatter thinks in a few weeks time people will move on.
I don’t see the sponsors as any sort of key. For their own PR they have to say something like that this [condemn corruption] but having their name wrapped around the greatest sporting event in the world… I don’t recall a sponsor withdrawing in the past four or five years.
Uefa president Michel Platini attends a press conference prior to the 65th FIFA Congress at Hallenstadion on May 28, 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland. Photograph: Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images
Platini said it was difficult for him to tell his “friend” Sepp Blatter that he should step down, and said the incumbent president “wants to come out fighting”. Platini finished the press conference saying:
Europe don’t support Mr Blatter... There are beautiful evenings ahead, but some long days before them.
I’m responsible for Uefa. Fifa covers more. I don’t know the system, I only here the rumours and read the press – I’m not dumb.
I would have liked to hear the Garcia report. Today we have had proof that there is something that does’t work. We are waiting for the Garcia report and we would have had it for a while now [had it been made public originally].
Does Platini believe that Blatter really would have resigned, had he been asked several weeks ago?
Yes. Yes, yes. I believe, but I couldn’t have asked him a few weeks ago because what happened happened yesterday.
Platini on Prince Ali, who he has vowed to back in tomorrow’s election:
Prince Ali is young, he’s ambitious and that’s why I support him. He can do some good, he doesn’t need money. Things are a bit complicated in his region because he doesn’t have the support of his region but he’s a man that can do a lot of good.
Does Platini believe Blatter can be beaten tomorrow?
Yes. Before what happened yesterday, no. But enough is enough. People have really had enough. I think there will be a lot of changes but we’re going to continue working this evening.
Platini on David Gill, who has said he will resign from the Fifa’s executive committee if Blatter wins the election for presidency:
I brought David into Fifa. He was not interested and I said England has to be in Fifa, it’s too easy to speak in the newspaper it is better to speak in the room.
But, he said ‘I will be proposed as vice president of the British before the elections’. Which means he doesn’t know what could be the election of the president after that.
To be clear, if we can win the election we meet all the general secretaries in Berlin at the final of the Champions League and we can make decisions, other decisions. Many people don’t want to stay with this Fifa. It could be... it could be in Berlin.
I told him ‘Sepp, I’d like to speak to you man to man, face to face.’ He said ‘It’s too late. I can’t all of a sudden leave when congress starts this afternoon.’
I told Sepp Blatter to leave, to step down, because you are giving Fifa a terrible image. It’s not easy to tell a friend that he must leave but that is the way history is going. I’m saying this with sadness, with tears in my eyes. There have been too many scandals.
Today we had a meeting of the 54 members, tomorrow when it comes to the election of the presidency a very big majority of European national associations will vote Prince Ali. People don’t want (Sepp Blatter) anymore and I don’t want him anymore either. I have always said they want Fifa to be strong and Fifa is no longer strong. I am still trying to convince some [European football associations] who are not totally convinced.
Michel Platini speaks to the press following Fifa’s meeting:
Sometimes I have stomach troubles and that relates to Fifa problems. Honestly, myself as a lover of Fifa, I’m a great admirer of it’s history, I really don’t know where to put myself. I have had enough, enough is enough. Too much is too much.
An activist wears a giant head depicting Sepp Blatter inside a cage during a protest by the Avaaz.org organisation prior to the 65th Fifa congress at the Hallenstadion in Zurich, Switzerland, 28 May 2015. Photograph: Ennio Leanza/EPA
Our chief sport correspondent Owen Gibson has filed this from Zurich:
European football’s governing body has ruled out seeking a postponement of Friday’s Fifa presidential election despite the crisis gripping the organisation and will instead back Sepp Blatter’s challenger Prince Ali bin al-Hussein.
Following a meeting of all 54 Uefa members, it also emerged that former Manchester United chief executive David Gill has vowed to relinquish his seat as Fifa vice president if Blatter wins Friday’s election.
The Uefa and FA board member received applause when he said he would not take up the seat he was due to inherit from Jim Boyce after Friday’s Fifa Congress.
The Uefa president, Michel Platini, who had earlier met personally with Blatter to ask him to stand down in the wake of Wednesday’s dramatic wave of arrests, told the delegates that the confederation needed to unite in support of Blatter’s challenger Prince Ali. Most of Uefa’s members will back Ali in Friday’s election though some, including Russia and Spain, will remain staunch backers of the incumbent.
Prince Ali is understood to have told the Uefa delegates that he believed he had the support of more than 60 associations outside Europe, which would give him more than enough backing to take the contest to a second round. Ali or Blatter would need a two thirds majority to win in the first round and a simple majority thereafter.
Following a morning of crisis meetings at Fifa HQ with representatives of each confederation, Blatter has resolved to press ahead with Friday’s election.
One Uefa source said that when Platini, a former supporter of Blatter, personally asked the president to stand down he told him that he would not but that he might have considered it if he had been asked earlier.
Michael van Praag, the Dutch FA president who stood down from the race to succeed Blatter last week before Tuesday’s dramatic arrests, said that Uefa had decided against a boycott of Friday’s vote because that would guarantee Blatter victory.
Uefa’s stance was confirmed by John Delaney, chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland:
“David Gill stood up and said he won’t take up his seat, that was the big thing. I think it was very brave and very honest of him and there was a good round of applause, people thought ‘that’s a man of honour’. From his own personal perspective he doesn’t want to serve under Blatter and you have to respect that position.
“There wasn’t a vote taken but Michel Platini will tell you Uefa is unified, whether all 53 transfer their votes over I don’t know, I think one or two will be lost along the way.”
Uefa will not boycott election; Gill to resign if Blatter wins
So Uefa has decided not to boycott tomorrow’s scheduled election for Fifa presidency and will instead get behind Prince Ali in a bid to oust Sepp Blatter from power and prevent the 79-year-old securing a fifth-term.
In addition, PA are reporting that David Gill will resign from Fifa’s executive committee if Blatter is re-elected as president.
A reminder that we are still waiting to hear the fallout from Sepp Blatter’s emergency meeting with the heads of the representatives from Fifa’s six confederations, which includes Uefa’s Michel Platini – and it is being reported that Uefa will not boycott tomorrow’s scheduled election for Fifa presidency.
The new culture, media and sport secretary John Whittingdale adds his voice to the growing number calling for a change in leadership at Fifa. The football governing body is facing a crisis following the arrest of a number of its top officials on charges of accepting bribes totalling millions of dollars. Whittingdale calls Fifa deeply flawed and corrupt and says this ‘latest sorry episode’ highlights the urgent need for change. Guardian
Before the Kremlin commented on the shocking legal drama unfolding over alleged activities at global soccer authority FIFA, the Russian Internet and other media lit up as Russians reacted to news of investigations that could cast a harsh light on Russia’s successful bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
Swiss authorities on May 27 arrested senior soccer officials for alleged corruption in connection with a U.S. case targeting FIFA executives and launched their own criminal proceedings relating to the way the World Cups in 2018 and 2022 were awarded to Russia and Qatar.
From the droll to the pugnacious, Russian commentary blended jokes at the expense of Russia’s World Cup bid, fears that Russia could lose its 2018 host status, the usual smattering of conspiracy theories, and a healthy dose of anti-Americanism.
The latter dovetailed with the comment that the Russian Foreign Ministry finally released in the evening, calling the arrests “the latest case of illegal extraterritorial application of American legislation.”
This tweet captures what the shadow culture, media and sport secretary, Chris Bryant, put in strong terms this morning in the House of Commons: “Workers are dying, 62 per match. Human rights are systemcaticlly being abused. Now that (sponsors) have raised concerns, should the bidding rounds [for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups] not be reopened?”
Western-led calls for Sepp Blatter to resign as FIFA president in the wake of the gravest corruption crisis to hit his organisation was described today as “blasphemy” by one of Africa’s federation presidents who said his continent was more firmly behind the veteran Swiss than ever.
While few federations have been prepared to speak out following the astonishing corruption claims in the United States, coupled with an unrelated seperate Swiss probe into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process, Guinea-Bissau FA president Manuel Nascimento Lopes said it was totally unfair to blame Blatter for the shady conduct of others.
“I’m a Christian and this is blasphemy,” Nascimento Lopes said.
The Guardian political reporter Frances Perraudin has this on the news that David Cameron has joined calls for Blatter to resign:
The prime minister backs the culture secretary’s call for Sepp Blatter to resign, a Downing Street spokesperson has told journalists in Westminster.
Asked if the prime minister supported comments John Whittingdale made in parliament this morning, his spokesperson said: “I associated the prime minister in full with what John Whittingdale was saying.”
He added: “We are squarely behind the FA. The FA, as John Whittingdale said in his statement, supports the candidacy of Prince Ali, and we are full square behind that.”
The spokesperson was asked whether the prime minister thought the next World Cup should take place in Russia.
“I understand that many England fans were disappointed that England’s bid hadn’t been successful,” he said. “You know that the prime minister was one of them. He was out there along with others of course trying to get a successful England bid at that time.”
He added: “What we now need to see is the criminal investigations and there are of course two distinct ones – there is a US one and one by the Swiss authorities ... – and they of course should be completed. And then what you need in terms of governance, as John Whittingdale was rightly saying – and I would associate the prime minister with his remarks in full – you will want to see reform of FIFA.”
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