Fifa president Sepp Blatter has resigned as the boss of the world football\u2019s governing body Fifa amid a corruption scandal.<\/p>\n
The 79-year-old Swiss has called an extraordinary Fifa congress \u201cas soon as possible\u201d to elect a new president.<\/p>\n
Blatter was re-elected last week, despite seven top Fifa officials being arrested two days before the vote as part of a US prosecution.<\/p>\n
Football Association of Malawi (Fam) and other Caf members supported Blatter despite growing concerns over corruption allegations.<\/p>\n
But Blatter has given in to the pressure following investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mandate does not appear to be supported by everybody,\u201d Blatter said.<\/p>\n
Fifa was rocked last week by the arrests on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering as part of a US prosecution that also indicted 14 people.<\/p>\n
A separate criminal investigation by Swiss authorities into how the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were allocated is also under way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very much linked to Fifa and its interests. Those interests are dear to me and this is why I am taking this decision,\u201d added Blatter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat counts most to me is the institute of Fifa and football around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blatter was urged to quit by European football\u2019s governing body Uefa before the election because of the claims of corruption dogging Fifa.<\/p>\n
However, he was voted in for a fifth term as he beat Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have thoroughly considered and thought about my presidency and the last 40 years in my life,\u201d said Blatter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese years were closely related to Fifa and the wonderful sport of football. I appreciate and love Fifa more than anything else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI only want to do the best for Fifa and my institution. I decided to stand again as the best option for football. The elections are closed but the challenges we face haven\u2019t come to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has resigned as the boss of the world football\u2019s governing body Fifa amid a corruption scandal. The 79-year-old Swiss has called an extraordinary Fifa congress \u201cas soon as possible\u201d to elect a new president. Blatter was re-elected last week, despite seven top Fifa officials being arrested two days before the vote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3442,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions\/3442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}