Blatter to step down from FIFA in 2006
Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:34FIFA president Sepp Blatter has announced that he will stand down in 2006 as the head of soccer's world governing body. Blatter was re-elected for a second term in May, just before the World Cup Finals in South Korea and Japan. He defeated Cameroon's Issa Hayatou, the head of the Confederation of African Football.
"I have said I am in the second half of the football game," Blatter told Sport Business. "From the very beginning I said my presidency will not be more than two mandates. I am now in the second mandate and at the end of it I will be 70 years old. I think it will be the correct time then to leave the organisation."
He said he would begin considering a suitable replacement in 2004, the year of FIFA's 100th anniversary. "Let me go first to the 2004 centenary festivities and then at that time I will be able to foresee who should or could be in such a position," he added.
Blatter had faced financial mismanagement and corruption prior to the May election, but insisted his conscience was clear: "I don't mind how I am seen. I don't care. I would have done the job according to my conscience, according to the mission I have received from the congress in 1998 and 2002 and I will do it the best I can."
Filed by Greg McKevitt
