As FIFA faced the worst crisis in its 111-year history, Michel Platini, the former French international who now heads UEFA, Europe’s soccer confederation, said he had told #Blatter to go but the 79-year-old had refused.
“I said, I’m asking you to leave, FIFA’s image is terrible. He said that he couldn’t leave all of a sudden,” Platini told a news conference.
“I’m saying this with sadness and tears in my eyes, but there have been too many scandals, FIFA doesn’t deserve to be treated that way,” Platini said, speaking after an emergency FIFA meeting in Zurich earlier in the day.
Platini said 45 or 46 of UEFA’s 53 eligible member associations would vote for Jordan’s Prince Ali bin Al Hussein to succeed Blatter at an election due on Friday.
But it appeared that Blatter still commanded enough of FIFA’s 209 member associations and could expect to be anointed for a fifth term as president.
Despite FIFA assertions that it was business as usual following the arrest of seven senior figures on U.S. corruption charges, Blatter kept out of public view on Thursday when he failed to show up at a medical conference.
FIFA’s medical chief Michel D’Hooghe told the medical officers: “President Blatter apologises for not being able to come today because of the turbulences you have heard about.”