Blatter Remains Defiant Amid Storm Before FIFA Election

Soccer's world governing body will hold a presidential election Friday, two days after a group of its leading officials were charged with corruption, its headquarters were raided and the governments of two countries announced they were investigating more allegations of bribery.

But when the voting members of FIFA cast their ballots on Friday, it most likely will be as if nothing had happened this week. Sepp Blatter, the publicly embattled leader seeking a fifth term as FIFA's president, shows no signs of political damage. Despite a new round of allegations of widespread bribery implicating some of his top lieutenants, 11 of whom have been provisionally suspended from soccer, Blatter is expected to handily defeat his only challenger.

On Thursday, in his first public comments since the scandal became public, Blatter, 79, used a speech opening FIFA's annual congress on Thursday to deflect responsibility for FIFA's problems and simultaneously suggest he was willing and capable of solving them.

"We, or I, cannot monitor everyone all of the time," Blatter said. "If people want to do wrong, they will also try to hide it. But it must also fall to me to be responsible for the reputation of our entire organization, and to find a way to fix things.

"We cannot allow the reputation of FIFA to be dragged through the mud any longer. It has to stop here and now."

Blatter is widely expected to win on Friday - in a vote only miles from the luxury hotel where Thursday's arrests took place - in part because of FIFA's electoral math. The FIFA president is elected by a one-vote-per-country poll of its 209 member federations, making the many smaller countries who support Blatter an effective counterweight to his unpopularity elsewhere, most notably in Europe.

His speech in a Zurich theater Thursday came amid both criticism and support of his leadership from around the world. In Russia and Brazil, top officials suggested the U.S. investigators had sought the arrests to increase American influence in soccer.

Blatter has given countless speeches during his 17-year career as FIFA's president, but none quite like the one he delivered Thursday. It was a delicate moment but one so significant that Blatter, who is known for his off-the-cuff comments, was said to have repeatedly rehearsed his remarks in the car on the way to the theater.

The final product struck a mixed tone. One part sadness, one part resolve, one part unyielding optimism, Blatter's speech urged FIFA and its members to do a better job policing themselves.

"I will not allow the actions of a few to damage the reputation of FIFA," he said.

Blatter, who was not directly implicated in the indictment from the U.S. Justice Department (which is seeking extradition of the executives detained on its request) or a separate investigation announced by Swiss authorities into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, acknowledged that these were "unprecedented and difficult times" for FIFA. He noted, too, that he was aware many people hold him "ultimately responsible for the actions and reputation of the global football community."

"The next few months will not be easy for FIFA," he added. "I'm sure more bad news may follow. But it is necessary to begin to restore trust in our organization. Let this be the turning point."

It was difficult to tell how well Blatter's message was received -the crowd at the theater applauded politely both before and after the speech - but there has been little indication that a sea change against him had occurred on the eve of the election.

Blatter is expected to comfortably defeat his only challenger, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, once the secret-ballot voting is conducted, to secure a fifth term. Blatter, who won the presidency in 1998, was elected without opposition in his last two campaigns, but Friday's vote will not be a similarly unanimous expression of support.

Michel Platini, the president of European soccer's governing body, called for Blatter to step down during an emergency meeting of top officials convened early Thursday and then enthusiastically endorsed Prince Ali.

"After what happened recently, I think enough is enough, and a number of people think likewise," Platini told reporters. "There is a radical change in the mind-set of a number of heads of associations."

Platini predicted Prince Ali would receive "45 or 46" of the 53 European votes, while campaign advisers for Prince Ali often have played up how much support he will receive outside Europe. Sunil Gulati, the head of U.S. Soccer and a member of FIFA's governing executive committee, said on Thursday that the Americans supported Prince Ali but it remains unclear how many other countries from CONCACAF, the regional body for North America, Central America and the Caribbean, will vote against Blatter.

The African, South American and Asian confederations are largely seen as supporting Blatter, who would need two-thirds of the votes to win on the first ballot and a simple majority on any ensuing ballots.

While the soccer officials here prepared for their congress - other issues under discussion Friday include a controversial proposal from the Palestinian Football Association calling for Israel to be expelled from FIFA - the fallout from Wednesday's dawn-hour police raid at a luxury hotel continued to ripple. A former top FIFA executive who was indicted, Jack Warner, turned himself in to the police late Wednesday in his native Trinidad, and in Argentina a judge issued arrest warrants for three media and marketing executives names in the indictments.

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, criticized the United States for its involvement in the raids, accusing the Department of Justice of intervening outside its jurisdiction by pursuing the case against senior soccer officials, who, he noted, are not U.S. citizens. Putin also said that he supported Blatter's approach to running global soccer and added that the U.S. investigation appeared to be a blatant attempt to stifle Blatter's re-election.

In South America, the reactions were mixed. In Brazil, the host country of the 2014 World Cup and the home of Jose Maria Marin, the powerful soccer authority who was among the FIFA figures arrested in Zurich, some defenders of Marin contended that the investigation was an effort by the United States to gain influence within FIFA. But in neighboring Argentina, the satirical magazine Barcelona captured the prevailing mood with an irony-soaked cover denouncing the U.S. investigation as an example of "Yankee" imperialism. The magazine called the complaint "an obvious assault on a bribery-fueled and sovereign" region.

On a commercial level, Wednesday's arrests prompted some FIFA partners to make statements regarding their relationships with the organization. Several sponsors, including Adidas, Coca-Cola and Visa, called for FIFA to change the way it operates - Visa vowed to "reassess" its World Cup sponsorship if the body did not change its ways - and on Thursday another major World Cup sponsor, Hyundai Motor, also registered its disapproval. The South Korean company said it was "extremely concerned" by the corruption charges.

South Africa denied any wrongdoing on Thursday after the American indictment unsealed Wednesday suggested that a $10 million bribe had helped the country win the right to host the 2010 World Cup. Federal prosecutors have accused Warner of offering his support for South Africa to the highest bidder, and then using much of the payout he received for personal use.

© 2015, The New York Times News Service