Hoeness assails Blatter

FRANKFURT – Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness called for the removal of Fifa President Sepp Blatter from office if he is unable to show how he intends to resolve the problem of corruption over the next year.

‘Blatter has to clearly state over the 12 months how he intends to dry out this swamp and if he fails there must be a possibility to remove him,’ Hoeness told the Munich newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview published yesterday, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.’Every week we have something new,’ Hoeness said, referring to recent claims by former Fifa vice president Jack Warner that he had been awarded World Cup television rights for as little as US$1 in return for helping Blatter win elections for the presidency of world football’s ruling body. ‘The last events are the final proof for me that Blatter should not be given the time until the end of his term.’Blatter’s fourth term as Fifa president ends in May 2015.Hoeness holds no international position but he is influential in Germany as president of the country’s top club. Blatter is often the target of criticism from Bayern officials. Board chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who is the president of the European Club Association and is at odds with Fifa over the international calendar, has compared Blatter to a dictator.Warner, who resigned from Fifa in June amid bribery allegations, said in a statement last week that the organisation awarded him the 1998 World Cup rights in his native Trinidad and Tobago for $1 after he helped Blatter win a ‘brutal’ campaign to become Fifa president.A former president of Concacaf and the Caribbean Football Union, Warner also said he was sold the rights for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups after helping Blatter get re-elected in 2002, and later bought the 2010 and 2014 rights.The accusations are the latest twist to a saga of corruption accusations and infighting which has dogged Fifa throughout 2011. Blatter has repeatedly promised to clean up Fifa’s act. – Nampa-AP

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