adminEuropean football’s leaders will stage a sit-down protest against Sepp Blatter next week as the clamour for regime change at Fifa intensifies in the wake of fresh corruption allegations against it. Representatives from all 54 members of Uefa, including Football Association chairman Greg Dyke, will be asked to snub Blatter’s announcement that he is standing for re-election as Fifa president at its annual congress in Sao Paulo.
Blatter, 78, is expected to declare his candidacy in a speech to Fifa’s 209 members, reneging on a promise to step down when his fourth term in office expires next summer.
And while the announcement is expected to be loudly acclaimed by most of those in the room – in defiance of yet more evidence of corruption on Blatter’s watch – it will also provoke a silent demonstration from the game’s most powerful confederation.
A sit-down protest will be led by Blatter’s arch-rival, Michel Platini, the Uefa president who had been favourite to succeed his one-time ally but who now looks increasingly unlikely to run in 2015.
Platini and other senior figures within European football’s governing body believe regime change is the only way to restore Fifa’s battered image, which has been dented further by new allegations over the vote to decide the hosts for the 2022 World Cup. — Telegraph
Online Reporter