Update | Sepp Blatter 'facing FBI investigation' after quitting as Fifa president
79-year-old who has ruled soccer's world governing body for almost two decades announces shock resignation just days after being re-elected to a fifth term
Sepp Blatter resigned as Fifa president on Tuesday in the face of a US-led corruption investigation that has plunged world soccer’s governing body into the worst crisis in its history.
Blatter is now the focus of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) corruption investigation in the United States, according to the The New York Times and ABC News, citing unnamed law enforcement officials and sources familiar with the case. No further details were given.
A source told ABC News: “We may not be able to collapse the whole organisation, but maybe you don’t need to”, referring to typical federal law enforcement tactics of getting people to provide information about their superiors.
An FBI spokesman said the bureau was “making no comment” beyond last week’s announcement by Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey that FIFA was being investigated for corruption. Blatter has not yet been identified publicly as a target of the investigation.
Blatter, 79, announced the decision to resign at a news conference in Zurich, six days after the FBI raided a hotel in the Swiss city and arrested several Fifa officials and just four days after he was re-elected to a fifth term as president.
Watch: Embattled Sepp Blatter quits as Fifa Chief amid mounting corruption scandal