Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter lost his appeal against a six-year ban for ethics violations, imposed amid the biggest corruption scandal to shake the world soccer body, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said.
Crisis-hit world football governing body FIFA faces one of the most important days in its 112-year history when it elects a new leader on Friday hoping to usher in a fresh era after decades of tawdry controversy.
The committee also handed out a 90-day suspension to FIFA Secretary-General Jerome Valcke, who had already been put on leave by the football body, and banned former FIFA Vice-President Chung Mong-joon for six years and fined him 100,000 Swiss francs (67,021).
Leading sponsors of football's world governing body have demanded independent oversight of FIFA's reform process in an open letter published on Tuesday ahead of a key meeting to finalise proposed reforms at the scandal-plagued organisation.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter, already facing a criminal investigation from Swiss prosecutors, may now come under scrutiny from his organisation's own ethics investigators if they find evidence of potential wrongdoing, according to FIFA's ethics procedure.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter is a mere servant at the service of football, he said on Friday as he re-stated his intention to run for a fifth mandate in next May's election.
'It was not an agreement, this was his proposal and of course it (then) went to the vote at the (FIFA) executive committee'
FIFA's director of communications Walter de Gregorio is to resign after making a joke on television.
The Arab region squandered the chance to help elect their first FIFA president because their two candidates failed to cooperate, leaving the door open for Swiss Gianni Infantino to triumph on Friday, Arab soccer chiefs and pundits said.
Scandal-plagued FIFA postponed the bidding for the right to host the 2026 World Cup.
Blatter quits FIFA; under investigation by US prosecutors, FBI.
A European-led boycott of FIFA or the World Cup is unrealistic.
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