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Seven candidates in race to succeed Sepp Blatter — Federation Internationale de Football Association presidential elections

On Wednesday, one of those arrested, former Brazilian Football Confederation president Jose Maria Marin, 83, agreed to be extradited to the US.

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He said in London on Friday that all the issues surrounding allegations of corruption and his suspension by the world football’s governing body were politically-motivated and at the behest of the US.

If the United States had won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, “all we’d be talking about now would be the marvellous 2018 World Cup in Russian Federation and not about any problem at FIFA”, he said.

He went on to reveal America’s bid was scuppered by UEFA president Michel Platini who decided he wanted to back eventual winners Qatar instead.

Earlier, while giving evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, Mr Dyke said: “There’s nothing Mr Blatter says that surprises me much”. Since I became president of Federation Internationale de Football Association, we have made Federation Internationale de Football Association a big commercial company.

Blatter’s comments will spark further controversy over World Cup bidding – England, Spain/Portugal and Belgium/Holland spent tens of millions of pounds bidding against Russian Federation.

Blatter, who has been president of Federation Internationale de Football Association since 1998, said politics was behind “attacks” on him which followed the indictment of 14 soccer officials and sports marketing executives by USA prosecutors in May.

“And everything was good until the moment when [French president Nicolas] Sarkozy came in a meeting with the crown prince of Qatar, who is now the ruler of Qatar”.

Asked if the FA would look to reclaim the bid costs, including £2.5m of government money, Dyke said: “I agree it would be very nice to get taxpayers’ money back”. And they wanted to say — we, Ethics Committee, we are not at the service of the president, we are totally independent.

The disgraced Blatter, 79, and Platini, 60, have both been suspended by FIFA’s ethics committee for 90 days as an investigation into a suspicious payment takes place.

Regan has criticised Blatter and said: “I think it’s shocking, I think it’s absolutely shocking but ultimately we need to see those facts rather than hear them from Mr Blatter”.

Blatter added: “And this has changed the whole pattern”.

However, the 79-year old has rejected complaints made by sponsors over a bribery and corruption scandal, and says they were politically motivated and made at the command of the US.

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Platini portrayed himself as the man to bring world soccer back to its sporting roots.

'There was an agreement to grant Russia 2018 World Cup hosting rights'