Calls for Sepp Blatter to be removed from FIFA role immediately

Sepp Blatter must be removed immediately to prevent him spending the next six months finding a successor to cover his tracks, MPs have heard.

The Fifa president is expected to be replaced in December despite announcing his resignation last week, a parliamentary debate was told.

Mr Blatter announced he would stand down as Fifa president after 17 years – days after he was re-elected despite the arrests of football officials on suspicion of decades of bribe taking.

But Fifa reform campaigner Damian Collins, Tory MP for Folkestone and Hythe, said immediate change at the top of the organisation is needed – with it currently resembling the “dying days of some old Soviet republic”.

Mr Collins warned things will “get a lot worse” for Fifa before they improve as the FBI and Swiss investigations will intensify, and reiterated his desire for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding processes to be re-run.

He also sought assurances about the action taken by the Serious Fraud Office and whether it intends to open its own Fifa investigation or is fully cooperating with the US and Swiss-led investigations.

The MP, a founder member of New Fifa Now, told a Westminster Hall debate: “Fifa has confirmed…that the timetable set will be that the Fifa congress will meet on December 16 to elect a new president.

“That means from now until then the remainder of this year Sepp Blatter will be there.

“He will be pulling the strings, he’ll be managing the process of reform, he’ll be seeking to ensure the next president of Fifa is someone who will look after him in the same way he, for so many years, looked after (Joao Havelange), who covered his tracks and mistakes and protected the old guard.

“That is what we’re seeing now – it’s like the dying days of some old Soviet republic where the old guard rally around each other trying to save the whole operation, and it cannot be allowed to happen.

“The external pressure we can supply through debating matters related to Fifa in this chamber, through questioning sponsors, through questioning football associations, I believe is essential to keeping the pressure on.”

Mr Collins went on: “I believe that change should be Sepp Blatter’s immediate removal as president, an interim team of people brought in who are respected from world sport – it doesn’t necessarily have to be football – but people from outside can come in and clean out the yard, lead a real reform process and set in place proper elections in the future that will involve people who are not tainted by the corruption of the past.

“I believe things will get a lot worse for Fifa before they get better. The FBI and Swiss organisations will go right through the organisation and they will expose any wrongdoing, any incorrect payments that were made.

“This could involve a very large number of people that have been part of the Blatter years. It’s time we had a clear out and the UK has a real role and voice in making sure that happens.”