SOCCER:WORLD FOOTBALL'S governing body has been plunged deeper into crisis after its ethics committee widened a bribery investigation to include Sepp Blatter.
The Fifa president will appear in front of the ethics committee on Sunday with Mohamed bin Hammam, his Qatari rival, who is accused of offering cash bribes, and Jack Warner, the Concacaf president who has clung to a pivotal role at Fifa for 28 years despite a string of alleged scandals.
Amid another day of mud-slinging and growing pressure to suspend this week’s presidential election, Fifa appears determined to press on with this week’s congress of all 208 member nations. Sponsors, including Adidas, have also raised concerns about the impact of the latest and most serious corruption allegations.
As the most senior figures in world football descended on London for tonight’s Champions League final, the main topic of conversation was not the clash between Manchester United and Barcelona but the shattered credibility of Fifa.
Blatter was due to attend but it is unclear whether he will make the trip from Zurich in light of the latest allegations. He said: “I cannot comment on the proceedings that have been opened against me. The facts will speak for themselves.
“I think the process is fast descending into a farce,” the British sports minister Hugh Robertson said. “It’s impossible to have a sensible election when both of the candidates have been accused of corruption. The sensible thing would be to suspend the election until these allegations have been properly investigated.”
The claims against Blatter mean that 10 of Fifa’s 24-man executive committee have now either been found guilty or accused of corruption in the last 12 months. Fifa’s ethics committee was obliged to investigate Blatter under its own code after Bin Hammam claimed the president knew all about alleged payments handed to Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials at a conference on May 10th-11th. Bin Hammam and Warner had already been summoned to appear before the ethics committee on Sunday.
