(Patrick B. Kraemer/Keystone via AP).
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“I will always be a president”, Blatter told the New York Times on Thursday, before saying with a smile: “I have also worked double than Platini – they should have given me four years reduction, not two”.
Officials from the confederation are in Zurich for Friday’s election for Federation Internationale de Football Association president.
Federation Internationale de Football Association organises World Cups and other worldwide tournaments, distributes broadcasting rights and should both protect and develop the world’s most popular sport.
However, addressing a news conference in Zurich on June 2, Blatter said he made a decision to lay down his mandate at FIFA extraordinary elective Congress. FIFA announced in July that the election of the new president would be held on February 26, 2016.
But the sheikh has said some of the promises risk bankrupting the world body, which has spent heavily since corruption scandals erupted last May and forced its longtime president Sepp Blatter to leave.
Former UEFA president Michel Platini has vowed to continue his fight against his ban from football after FIFA rejected his appeal.
The landmark presidential contest is an Asia v Europe battle between Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Gianni Infantino.
Blatter has taken a back seat leading into Friday’s vote, opting not to publicly endorse any of the five candidates.
Now he is the favorite.
During Sepp Blatter’s presidency, Federation Internationale de Football Association was criticized for using committee seats as patronage to reward loyalty and favored officials.
His candidacy has been dogged by questions over the 2011 Arab Spring in Bahrain.
The pair’s suspensions from all football-related activity were reduced from eight to six years on Wednesday in recognition of their services to the game, but both deny wrongdoing and neither is satisfied by the appeal verdict. He has called allegations made by human rights groups “nasty lies”. The paper suggests that candidates from Asia and Africa are more likely to back a candidate from Asia so Infantino might ask his supporters to back Prince Ali rather than vice versa.
Infantino’s credentials were once again endorsed by Platini, who received support at the UEFA congress.
Born close to Blatter’s Swiss hometown, Infantino has drawn straight from the 17-year president’s playbook by pledging to bump up FIFA’s cash handouts to members.
“South Africa isn’t exactly known for overtly brotherly relationships with other African countries and some even say that Mzansi is often considered too arrogant, with Scott, Zambian Vice-President going so far as to tell The Guardian in 2013 that he hates South Africans” because “they really think they’re the bees’ knees and actually they’ve been the cause of so much trouble in this part of the world”. Infantino will draw most Europeans, though not all of them, and harbours hopes of securing some Africans his way. He has provided transparent voting booths for the election and gone to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in attempt to enforce their use. Salman has never condemned these acts and, as presidential candidate Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan put it: “The simple, basic fact of the matter is that person did not protect or stick up for his players at that time”. Hayatou quickly relinquished some of his CAF powers. Switzerland has also launched a criminal investigation.
Blatter was the only name on the ballot paper and needed just a single valid vote to win.
Champagne’s self-funded campaign has the personal touch rivals lack, such as tweeting himself, but fellow European Infantino has eclipsed him on the stump. It’s yet to happen. The candidate with the lowest number of votes will drop out at each stage until a majority is found, which means that the election could drag well into this evening.
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Joao Havelange of Brazil beat Stanley Rous of England 68-52 in the second round of voting in Frankfurt, Germany. The 79-year-old Swiss won two of his five elections unopposed.
