Sepp: Bribery claims to have impact

20 November 2011 18:16

FIFA president Sepp Blatter believes members of the organisation's executive committee may find their positions untenable if they are found to have received payments from a now-defunct marketing company in the 1990s.

Blatter announced last month that FIFA would reopen a court dossier which identifies officials said to have received bribes from the organisation's former marketing partner ISL.

BBC's Panorama programme alleged in May that the court file shows Brazil's FIFA member Ricardo Teixeira and former FIFA president Joao Havelange received payments. Paraguay's FIFA member Nicolas Leoz was named in the court as having received 130,000 US dollars, according to the BBC.

Blatter told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Not that many were involved (in the ISL dossier), but it does look like some people won't be able to stay on the executive committee.

"I don't want to talk specifically about the ISL case. We'll do it openly and publicly and we'll ask an independent body to judge the documents.

"I can only tell you that there are no Swiss names on the list of people who accepted payments. Those who are hunting me and suggesting that Sepp Blatter is on the list are plain wrong."

The ISL case in the Swiss canton of Zug was settled in 2009 after three parties, including FIFA, paid compensation of £2.9million on the understanding that the names would remain secret.

Blatter reiterated his regret that votes on hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were taken at the same time, claiming it created "a conflict of interests".

He said the good governance committee would decide if there were grounds to open investigations into the decisions to award the 2018 tournament to Russia and the 2022 finals to Qatar.

Blatter was forced to apologise earlier this week after suggesting incidents of racism on the pitch could be settled by a handshake between the players concerned at the end of a game.

Source: PA