Mohamed bin Hammam withdraws from FIFA presidential race

there will be a press conference from fifa at 1:00am AEST

Of course Blatter is standing for President of FIFA. The General Secretary has just announced that Puerto Rico have returned a bribe of $40K from Qatar. According to the BBC alot of discussion going on between delegates about the election, but they will need a majority of 75% to stop the election and demand reform within FIFA. Is that possible? I would think very unlikely as they will need 153/154 countries to vote for the delay. Not only is there a potential anti-feeling towards the FA but probably too many delegates are aligned to Blatter. I just hope some other national FAs will take up the fight for transparency and openness and potentially put forward a candidate for president on an anti-corruption ticket.

208 member nations meet on Wednesday to vote for the new Gen Sec, which will be Blatter because he is the only candidate. How can the election go ahead? It is well over a year ago that both the Sunday Times in London and BBC first highlighted potential corruption within FIFA. Blatter was aware of the issues yet ignored them, claiming that FIFA was clean and did not need to be investigated. Now that allegations seem to have some mileage, as Blatter is the man at the top and failed to investigate, surely at least that is a derelection of duty! How many of the 207 members will abstain, the FA has already indicated it will abstain in protest at the vote on the basis that any candidate does not have their confidence? Will FFA and USFA also abstain or will tow the Blatter line? Seems to me to be alot of hot air by other nations without any guts to demand change at FIFA. Do you really think that Blatter will carry out an investigation on himself? He is probably hoping that matters will die down after the election and an investigation will be carried out outside the present glare of publicity. However I think he is underestimating the tenacity and quality of journalism in the UK and they will continue to dig away until FIFA collapses like a pack of cards. Already as in sinking ship they are fighting between themselves for the lifeboats.

For heaven's sake, disband FIFA!

I'll also add that some people are just simply interest in politics in general as a hobby. There are people out there who study the political history of different countries, organisations and local issues of countries that are not the nationality of their own as an intellectual pursuit because they find entertainment in doing that. If people find the internal machination of FIFA interesting and something worthy of discussion than so be it. No need to rain on their parade

It's not going to stop people from enjoying the game. Hardly anyone has said that they don't enjoy the game of football because of FIFA. That doesn't mean people want the administrator behaviouring in an ethical manner and want the world cup bidding process be done in an ethical and transparent manner. If you can't see that it would be nice if the allocation of the World Cup. You know what, the way FIFA runs its game does effect everyday Australian citizen considering that we used tax payers money to bid for that process (even if it is a small amount in the scheme of things). People want confidence that the money that the taxpayers was spent on a bidding process is fair. It's fair game in politics to say that Labour party wasted their money on this bid if it did turned out to be corrupt. If Australia is going to bid for the world cup in the future (although it will be a distant future) then it would be in our interest that the World cup bidding process is reform Just because the integrity of the world cup bidding process is a lower priority then the integrity of the football match itself, doesn't mean that people shouldn't care about the bidding process at all.

Fair enough.

@ dasilva There's a HUGE difference b/w Australian politics and football politics. In particular, the Australian political landscape affects our very way of life in Australia - it controls every single aspect of what people can and can't do if they choose to live in Australia. By contrast the current FIFA corruption allegation do NOT affect a single second of my enjoyment of Football - I can still play the Game as I like and I still enjoy watching all my favourite teams. Perhaps, I'm missing something ... so can you kindly explain how any of the current corruption allegations being aired about the FIFA administrators impacts your enjoyment of the Game - i.e. either playing the Game or watching the Game.

this is like going to a political discussion forum about politics in Australia and then say we and most Australian have zero concern what goes on in the head office and the federal government. There may be a lot of truth to that (I think most Australian couldn't give a damn about political issues) and it is within people's right to be apathetic about politics but it's hardly something boasting about and it certainly doesn't make the person look better for not caring. I have no doubt that FIFA politics have zero concern to most football fan (similar to international politics have little interest to most ordinary citizen) and that your statement is accurate but this board is a discussion for people who DO care and you are not exactly adding anything to it. If you don't care, fine but it's perfectly ok for people to be interested.

HUGE ... RELEASED AROUND LUNCH TIME... ONE OF THE PERSONS WHO WAS THERE HAS COME OUT AND SAID WHAT THEY SAW... FROM SBS... http://player.sbs.com.au/theworldgame#/twg_08/GlobalGame/GlobalGame/playlist/FIFA-corruption-confirmation/

Went to the World Cup last year and I noticed a lot of refereeing which was biased. Particularly for annointed teams. Ghana as an example were rubbish but FIFA had to keep an African side in the World Cup to keep local interest. It was not just that incident, there was a whole load of other stuff going on too which was shonky. I really doubt I would bother ever attending the Cup again.

@ amazonfan You said: "the allegations revolving around the World Cup, I would think that you should be a little concerned" NO. The allegations revolve around the HOSTING of the FIFA WC. In my opinion, there's a big difference. The integrity of the Game or any games during the FIFA WC is not being questioned. So, basically, this whole kerfuffle is about: "who gets to throw the biggest sports party in 2022"? And, whilst it would be nice to see a FIFA WC held in Australia in my lifetime, quite frankly, it's pretty low on my list of "what I want before I die". No matter where the WC is held, I'll be attending until I'm no longer able to travel.

warner should have been sunk years ago. interesting to hear Beckenbauers take on it all - the media reports scuppered the England bid and the respect he has for Sepp still... addressing many of those issues would severly constrain trade across lots of different jurisdictions.

"The Beautiful Game is bigger than FIFA or any administrative body. Can the same be said for Australian Rules Football and the AFL administration?" Absolutely. AFL administrations come and go, CEO's and chairmen come and go. Nobody are as big as Australian Football itself. "By contrast, if FIFA is removed … the EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Eredivisie, HAL etc. etc. etc. will continue without a blip and, most importantly …" Yes, but considering the allegations revolving around the World Cup, I would think that you should be a little concerned. Unless you don't care about the World Cup. "… my mates and I – and millions of other groups of mates – will continue to head down to their local park and create their own version of The Beautiful Game." You don't think Australian Football fans play footy in the park? We are no different to you in this regard. "FIFA is NOT Football; the GAME is all that matters and you really need to be one of the True Believers (not simply “a big football event” theatre watcher) to fully grasp this concept." Oh, please. Stop with this 'you need to be a true believer/attend every game/follow the HAL etc... to understand the game' nonsense. You don't. You don't need to have any knowledge which is approved by Fussball ist unser leben to understand this concept. You don't need to be a True Believer (whatever that means) and you absolutely can be a “a big football event” theatre watcher. FIFA is not Association Football? The Game is all that matters? Anybody can understand that, since it is the same with any other sport! The AFL administration is not Australian Football, the IOC is not cricket, David Stern is not basketball etc... And in all sports, the GAME is all that matters. Don't act as if you possess unique knowledge which only True Believers (as defined by you) have access to. You don't. Furthermore, don't for one moment think that your experience of being an Association Football fan is somehow distinct from (and more romantic than) that of an Australian Football fan (or that of any other sport.) It's not.

"he’s going to take the whole ship down with him" Hope so, the whole thing needs cleaning up. I also hope that they start to address the spiralling wages of the players, there really needs to be a sensible cap, we need financial responsibility and a clear and transparent governance. I also hope they place limits on the number of foriegners allowed in a squad so that leagues throughout the world can remain viable, not just a couple of leagues in Europe and the trade for finacial gain of young kids is brought under control.

Countries don't bid to host the Olympics Games - the Olympic Games are awarded to an individual city. By contrast, the FIFA WC is awarded to the whole Nation.

If a country wants to bid for one of the two big events-the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup-it should do itself a favour and bid for the Olympic Games rather than the World Cup. Why,you might ask? The reason is that the IOC changed the rules after the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic fiasco of 1999. The late Juan Antonio Samaranch oversaw a major change in the way the IOC handles the prospective countries Olympic bids. It is much simpler to deal with the IOC rather than be dragged through the mud by FIFA. FIFA, however, doesn't want to clean up its act. And the current events is there for all to see.

"systemic"

@ amazonfan The Beautiful Game is bigger than FIFA or any administrative body. Can the same be said for Australian Rules Football and the AFL administration? I have no doubt that AFL fans would be devastated if the AFL HQ was under siege - if you remove the AFL, the ARF landscape becomes pretty barren. By contrast, if FIFA is removed ... the EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Eredivisie, HAL etc. etc. etc. will continue without a blip and, most importantly ... ... my mates and I - and millions of other groups of mates - will continue to head down to their local park and create their own version of The Beautiful Game. FIFA is NOT Football; the GAME is all that matters and you really need to be one of the True Believers (not simply "a big football event" theatre watcher) to fully grasp this concept.

Sheek - my guess is Spiro being the well researched man he is read 'Foul' & put 2+2 together. The history of FIFA under Blatter is deals & payback, I love the concept of a FIFA 'Ethics Committee' as we all know how well self regualtion works.