Blatter Reveals Fifa Re-election Manifesto
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has laid out his manifesto for re-election for a fourth term of office saying that the world football’s governing body needs ‘evolution not revolution’.
Blatter faces Asian confederation chief Mohamed Bin Hammam in the election on 1st June, and has set out his proposals in a letter to FIFA’s 208 associations.
‘In these challenging times Fifa needs first of all stability, continuity and reliability,’ stated the 75-year old Swiss.
Bin Hammam’s election pledge is based upon major changes to FIFA’s structure.
The 61-year-old Qatari’s manifesto contains proposals for change, including the creation of 17 more executive committee positions on a new 41-strong FIFA board.
Blatter, who has been at the helm of FIFA since 1998, has also promised to apply ‘zero tolerance and fair play’ throughout the game and added that ‘the biggest enemies of football are corruption, match-fixing and doping’.
He insisted that he will ‘fight those enemies’ by developing the tools already put in place and referred to the ‘early-warning system’ for irregular betting patterns as well as the transfer-matching scheme.
Blatter added that under his leadership there had been a 57-fold increase in investment in football development projects when comparing the period 2007-2010 with that of 1995-98, prior to his election.
He also made an appeal to the financial interests of the member associations and pointed out that FIFA has grown its cash reserves from zero to $1.2bn. The associations were also reminded of the extra unscheduled payments they received following the success of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Blatter, who in his letter stressed that he had ‘always delivered on my promises’, added that there would be another additional financial dividend if the 2014 finals in Brazil prove to be a success.
On top of those handouts, he said FIFA would provide $1bn for football development over the next four years.
Blatter has pledged to ‘strengthen the universality of football’ and said that the controversial award of the World Cup to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 was ‘an important step in this direction’.
