Sepp Blatter
has begun the race to succeed him as Fifa president, setting the election for February next year as
Michel Platini
emerged as his most likely replacement.
The sense of farce surrounding the scandal-hit body intensified when prankster Lee Nelson, posing as a "North Korean World Cup bidding delegate", showered the longstanding Fifa president with fake dollar bills, seconds before his press conference was due to begin.
Nelson, whose real name is Simon Brodkin, has previously ambushed Kanye West at Glastonbury and posed as a member of the England football team. As the bills fluttered to the floor, Blatter appeared momentarily bemused before calling for the auditorium to be cleaned.
Appearing before the press for the first time since he promised to step down amid a spiralling corruption scandal, he returned to announce a “reform taskforce” that he insisted would restore Fifa’s credibility.
“I am still alive. After the tsunami on 27 May that came to Zurich, the waves have not taken me away. I am still here,” he said, referring to the dawn raids on the Baur au Lac hotel and the US indictments that followed.
Following speculation Blatter would attempt to make a U-turn and stay on as president, the 79-year-old unequivocally vowed to stand down.
“I will not be a candidate for the election in 2016,” he said, joking that he planned to become a radio journalist covering global politics. “There will be a new president. I can’t be the new president, because I am the old president.”
First-class job
The announcement came as it looked increasingly likely Uefa’s Platini would stand for the role.
David Gill
, the FA director who reversed his decision to resign from the Fifa executive committee after Blatter promised to go, praised Platini.
“My own personal view is that Michel has done a first- class job at Uefa. He has not officially put his name forward yet, but he is a football man, he has the experience and, like any good leader, he has a lot of good people around him because you cannot do it alone.”
On the reform programme promised by Blatter, Gill said: “There are a lot of good ideas and many of them of echo what the FA has been proposing for some time. It’s important that the recommendations are taken to the congress in February to ensure Fifa does really start on a new beginning.”
However, reform campaigners argued the proposals were not an acceptable response.
Platini held talks at the Baur au Lac on Sunday night with the Bahraini Asian Football Confederation president, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, and Kuwait’s well-connected Fifa executive member, Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah.
Weighing options
Platini, who has been backed by four confederations but not Africa and Oceania, is understood to be weighing up his options and will take further soundings at the World Cup draw in St Petersburg on Saturday.
“He has been pleased to hear a lot of words of support from some of the world’s leading football decision-makers,” said a Uefa spokesman. “He has been impressed by the fact that many people could see him as a possible successor.”
Other potential candidates include the South Korean Chung Mong-joon, the Confederation of African Football president, Issa Hayatou, the former Brazil international Zico and the South African anti-apartheid campaigner Tokyo Sexwale.
Candidates will have until 26 October to announce whether they plan to stand under Fifa election rules. Guardian Service
