Is Sepp Blatter going to be off the job sooner than expected?
That’s the question after initial reports suggested the president of soccer world’s governing body had been provisionally suspended for 90 days.
However, Blatter’s lawyers said that he had “not been notified of any action taken by the FIFA Ethics Committee.”
Blatter adviser Klaus Stoehlker told CNN the embattled leader had been provisionally suspended. “They have not taken any decisions against him. But they have decided to wait on major decisions to carry out further investigation,” Stoehlker also told CNN.
Stoehlker also said that Blatter still considered himself the president of FIFA and is “still prepared to serve FIFA.”
Any suspension would have to be rubber-stamped by the adjudicatory arm of the Ethics Committee, which would rule on the request of the investigatory chamber.
FIFA has not commented on the situation so far and the Ethics Committee is still investigating.
The Swiss attorney general opened criminal proceedings against Blatter last month.
The Swiss authorities are looking into allegations believed to center on a 2005 TV rights deal between FIFA and Jack Warner, the former president of CONCACAF, the governing body of football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, as well as the alleged “disloyal payment” to Platini.
Stoehlker said Blatter would be back in his FIFA office Thursday, insisting that the Swiss hadn’t served his last day as the organization’s president.
“We would expect that the Ethics Committee would want to hear from the President and his counsel, and conduct a thorough review of the evidence, before making any recommendation to take disciplinary action,” Blatter’s lawyers said.
Pressure group NewFIFANow, which has campaigned against Blatter, reiterated its call for radical reform of the world governing body.
“With criminal investigations reaching the highest levels of FIFA, and potential ethics investigations into other Presidential candidates, it once again reinforces the need for a complete ‘new broom’ at FIFA to implement independent reform and essentially to start again,” said a NewFIFANow statement.
If Blatter is suspended, Issa Hayatou, vice president of FIFA, would potentially be in line to take charge of the organization.
In 2011, the 69-year-old Hayatou was sanctioned by the International Olympic Commitee over taking cash payments from a sports marketing firm.
Hayatou, who has been in charge of African football since 1998, failed in his bid to become FIFA president when he lost to Blatter in 2002.
Another top FIFA official, Jerome Valcke, the organization’s secretary general, is currently suspended pending an investigation into ticket fraud allegations.
