Sepp Blatter has announced that he will stand down as president of FIFA, amid the ongoing corruption scandal. In a press conference held on Tuesday, the 79-year-old called for an extraordinary congress to elect his successor.
The next FIFA congress was due to be held in Mexico next May, though FIFA’s Domenico Scala confirmed that Blatter’s successor will be determined any time between December of this year to March 2016.
In the press conference, Blatter called for profound structural reforms to world football’s governing body:
“I am now free from the constraints of an election. I will be in a position to focus on profound reforms. For many years we have called for reforms. But these are not sufficient.”
His resignation comes during ongoing investigations into massive FIFA corruption being carried out by U.S. and Swiss officials. Revelations on Tuesday saw Blatter’s right-hand man Jérôme Valcke implicated in the transfer of a $10 million bribe from South Africa to Jack Warner’s Caribbean Football Union back in 2008.
