Blatter seeks last four years

head of football’s world governing body Fifa, it would be his final spell in charge.
Blatter (75) announced his intentions at a Uefa Congress yesterday.
The Swiss has been in the job for 13-years and confirmed the June 1 vote in Zurich would be his final bid.
It had once been thought that Blatter would go unchallenged before stepping aside for current Uefa boss Michel Platini in four years.
But he will be challenged for the job by Asian football chief Mohamad bin Hammam, who has adopted an anti-corruption stance.
“I’m looking at four more years, and they shall be my last four,” said Blatter.
Blatter has been on the campaign trail recently and evoked the programme he would hope to establish.
“Football should be a school for life and play a role in education and should be supported by governments for its health and education aspect,” said Blatter.
“But football is bedevilled by all kinds of rotten influences, it’s a game and in a game we often try to cheat a little,” he said.
Blatter went on to explain he would help clubs maintain their identity and strengthen the national teams and would fight against illegal gambling and a trend toward disrespect to referees.
He also evoked a new zero tolerance policy toward members of the Fifa executive, which is likely an illusion toward the scandal that hit two members of the governing body during the vote for who had the right to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Blatter’s policies were heavily scrutinised after the surprise vote to hand Qatar the 2022 World Cup, with lack of transparency being the chief gripe of detractors.
Bin Hammam, a wealthy Qatari and president of the Asian Football Confederation, has pledged to expand Fifa’s decision-making process and introduce a “more fair distribution of revenue and increased transparency”, if he won the presidency.
Bin Hammam reached out to member associations by proposing to double their annual grants to US$500 000 and is a firm supporter of goalline technology.
Meanwhile, Frenchman Michel Platini was re-elected unopposed as president of European football’s governing body Uefa yesterday.
The 55-year-old former European Player of the Year will serve a second mandate of four years, having first been elected in 2007 when he took over from the veteran Swedish administrator Lennart Johansson.
Since then his reforms have included the democratisation of the flagship Champions League tournament and new “financial fair play” rules obliging European clubs to break even.
Platini’s second term as head of the Geneva-based Uefa will notably include the 2012 European Championships to be jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine.
Uefa have on numerous occasions expressed concerns about Ukraine’s readiness to co-host the tournament and Platini admitted that Uefa may have erred in awarding the right to host the event to the financially imperilled country.
In contrast to 2007 when he scored a narrow 27 votes to 23 win over the incumbent Johansson, Platini’s re-election was a straightforward affair as he had no opposition.
“The weight of responsibility is protecting the game. For me, football is only a game,” Platini has said.
“As long as we keep the game, with its passion, we will have won.”
Recently tipped by Pele to succeed Sepp Blatter as head of world governing body Fifa, Platini’s comfortable re-election in Paris will keep him in pole position.- AFP.