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| May 26, 2002 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 13,1423 |
FIFA fight not damaging World Cup
SEOUL, May 25: FIFA general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen said on Saturday that the World Cup finals were not being affected by the acrimonious FIFA presidential election campaign.
But FIFA president Sepp Blatter did not make an expected appearance at a news conference, at which a ban was imposed on questions pertaining to the open warfare which has severely damaged FIFA’s image and integrity around the world in the month’s leading up to the finals.
“The general situation with FIFA does not affect in any way either the organisation of the World Cup itself or my job,” said Zen-Ruffinen, who will almost certainly be out of that job if Blatter wins election as expected on Wednesday, two days before the World Cup starts.
Earlier this month Zen-Ruffinen accused Blatter of possible criminal corruption for the way he has run FIFA.
Blatter is standing against Issa Hayatou of Cameroon, the president the African Football Confederation (CAF) in the presidential election set for Wednesday’s Congress.
Blatter has said he expects to be re-elected comfortably and the indications are that he is right, but he goes into the election under a cloud.
He is facing possible criminal charges from the Zurich prosecutor who is studying 300-pages of evidence, collected by Zen-Ruffinen and submitted by FIFA executive committee, into what Zen-Ruffinen alleges is systematic financial mismanagement, allegations Blatter has called “false and groundless”.
Another Blatter critic, UEFA president Lennart Johansson, the chairman of the World Cup Organising Committee, said he did not know why Blatter had not shown up at the news conference.
“I have no reason. He must have a reason.”
But a FIFA spokesman said that Blatter, who arrived in Seoul on Thursday, would hold a major news conference on Sunday (0800 GMT) at the city’s World Cup press centre.
So far all Blatter has said publicly since arriving here is that he is confident of winning the election, as has Hayatou, who arrived on Saturday morning.
Dr Chung Mong-joon, the president of the Korean FA and a FIFA vice-president as well as being a tough critic of Blatter and a key Hayatou backer, greeted Hayatou at Inchon airport near Seoul and urged Asian FIFA members to back the African soccer chief as a way to ensure more World Cup berths for Asia.
As protocol demands he had also greeted Blatter when the president arrived on Thursday even though the personal relationship between the two men has seriously deteriorated in the past few weeks following the exchange of vituperative letters between them over the financial crisis engulfing the organisation.—Reuters
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