Blatter Re-elected For Fourth Term

Sepp Blatter has been voted in for a fourth term as president of world football’s governing body FIFA – as the only candidate left the 75 year-old received 186 of the 203 votes cast and will now stay in office until 2015.

This follows a late bid from the English and Scottish Football Associations to have the election postponed, following the ongoing corruption row that has surrounded FIFA for the past week, and resulted in Blatter’s only rival, Mohammed Bin Hammam, withdrawing from the two-man race.

FA chairman David Bernstein proposed that the election be postponed so that the allegations, which involved several leading figures at FIFA, could be properly investigated.

However, efforts to delay the election failed spectacularly, as the FA lost the vote 172-17.

Bernstein said: ‘I think it was worth it; we made an important point of principle. We felt a coronation wasn’t appropriate given what’s happening at FIFA’.

‘I think there’s been some movement in terms of greater democracy, in terms of congress being involved in things such as World Cup country selection rather than the Executive Committee, so I think there’s been some movement and we’re partly responsible for that’.

Following his re-election Blatter insisted that changes would be made, to amend for the negative publicity that the organisation had generated over the past week.

Blatter said: ‘Our pyramid is intact, the base, the foundation is strong and together we have four years to continue on our path and do our job. We will put FIFA’s ship back on the right course in clear, transparent waters. We need some time to do it, but we shall do it’.

‘From the beginning I wanted this congress to know and understand we are in a situation which needs not only words but action in order to counteract all these attacks’.

Blatter conceded the decision to have the bidding processes for two World Cups at the same time had been a mistake but said the move to have the 208 congress delegates vote on future World Cups, rather than the 24-man executive committee making the decision, was a step forward – giving more power to individual football associations.