Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Uefa & FA turn the heat up on Blatter over Fifa election

Nine football officials were arrested in Zurich in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but the world football governing body says Friday's presidential election will go ahead.Both the Football Association and Uefa have turned up the pressure on Fifa after seven top officials were arrested in Zurich on Wednesday morning.Numerous arrests were made in the early hours of Wednesday morning ahead of the 65th Fifa Congress, with Concacaf president Jeffrey Webb, Fifa executive committee member Eduardo Li and outgoing Fifa vice-president Eugenio Figueredo among those detained in Switzerland. A total of 14 people have been indicted.
Nevertheless, Fifa's head of communications and public affairs Walter De Gregorio refuted suggestions that president Sepp Blatter is trying to delay Friday's election and confirmed it would go ahead as planned.FA chairman Greg Dyke, though, says the arrests are a "very serious" matter and ought to merit a discussion into whether or not the elections should still take place - though, if it is confirmed, reiterated the FA's support of Prince Ali.We should stress this morning's developments are very serious for Fifa and its current leadership, read a statement from Dyke on the FA's official website.As one of the associations who nominated Prince Ali it will not surprise you to learn that if the election for president goes ahead The FA will be voting for him. However, there must be a question mark over whether the election should take place in these circumstances.Clearly things are changing very quickly and our delegation to the Fifa congress in Zurich, which I am leading, will discuss the position and what we should do about it with our colleagues in Uefa when we meet tomorrow morning.A statement from Uefa, meanwhile, read: "Uefa is astonished and saddened by the events which have taken place earlier today in Zurich and is now waiting for additional information.An informal meeting of the Uefa Executive Committee will take place this afternoon in Warsaw prior to the Uefa Europa League final to discuss the matter and further communication will be made in due course.It is expected the governing body of European football will discuss whether to formally request that Fifa postpone the presedential elections.Fourteen people in total were indicted by the US Department of Justice, with four sports marketing executives and one other man in the broadcast business detained alongside the nine football officials.

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