Soccer
Blatter: I'm clean
2012-01-23 12:42
Berlin - FIFA president Joseph Blatter has dismissed threats from former top official Jack Warner to launch a tsunami of allegations against the governing football body and reiterated he didn't receive kickbacks from a now bankrupt rights holder company.
Blatter said in an interview with Monday's edition of German sports magazine Kicker that Warner was not telling the truth when he said he received World Cup television rights for a symbolic fee in exchange for helping Blatter win the top job.
"There will be no tsunami. Former vice-president Jack Warner claims I gave him the rights for Trinidad for one dollar after my first election in 1998. That is not true. We had no influence in the rights distribution," Blatter said.
Warner resigned from all football functions last year after facing expulsion from FIFA for involvement in an alleged bribery attempt by presidential candidate Mohammed bin Hammam.
Bin Hammam withdrew ahead of the FIFA election in June, in which Blatter won another term until 2015, and was kicked out of FIFA.
Bin Hammam and Warner have protested their innocence, with Bin Hammam taking his case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Warner threatening a tsunami of allegations against FIFA.
FIFA has been bogged down by corruption allegations and Blatter has put himself atop a reform effort he wants to complete by the 2013 Congress.
Top officials are said to have received payments from former rights holder company ISL, with Blatter reiterating in the interview he planned to publish the relevant court documents by the January once a Swiss court has ruled on an appeal from a party involved in the case.
Blatter also told Kicker that "I was not a recipient of payments, that was confirmed by the court."