ZURICH, Switzerland, Oct. 7 (UPI) — The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) on Wednesday issued a provisional suspension for its president, Sepp Blatter, for three months as investigators look further into criminal allegations against the league chief.
Investigatory members of FIFA’s ethics committee met this week and decided torecommend the suspension against Blatter, 79, who has been the organization’s head since 1998.
The committee’s decision comes two weeks after Switzerland’s attorney generalopened criminal proceedings against Blatter.
“The news was communicated to the president this afternoon. He is calm,” former Blatt adviser Klauss Stohlker told BBC Sport. “Remember he is the father of the ethics committee.”
Judge Hans-Joachim Eckert of FIFA’s adjudicatory chamber now must decide whether to confirm the panel’s recommendation to suspend Blatter for 90 days. That confirmation could come Thursday, BBC Sport said.
“This is provisional for 90 days but he is not actually suspended. The committee has not yet made a decision and their meetings continue,” Stohlker added.
A 90-day suspension is the harshest the ethics committee can give a FIFA official without a conviction.
Blatter is being investigated over a 2005 FIFA television rights deal — and a payment of 2 million Swiss francs in 2011 by Blatter to Union of European Football Associations President Michael Platini, which the FIFA chief says was paid for work performed nearly a decade earlier.
Blatter, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, was re-elected to another term as FIFA president in May, but abruptly announced he would resign just four days later. He will officially leave the post on Feb. 26.
