Major corruption scandal in FIFA as Blatter refuses to quit as president after Uefa chief Michel Platini request

The 79-year-old Swiss held an emergency meeting with key Fifa officials on Thursday after world football’s governing body was subjected to yet more corruption case

Platini then made a personal appeal for Blatter to quit.

Platini said he addressed Blatter “like a friend” but that the Fifa boss had told him it was “too late” to resign.

Uefa, which governs European football, decided on Thursday not to boycott the election and will continue to back Prince Ali, although some member associations, like Russia, have said they will back Blatter.

Caf, which looks after the interests of Africa, has also reiterated its support for Blatter.

So has the Asian Football Confederation, although one of its members, the Australian football federation, has announced its intention to vote for Prince Ali.

“A big, big big majority of the European associations will vote for Prince Ali,” said Platini.

“People have had enough, they don’t want this president any more.”

Fifa was plunged into fresh crisis on Wednesday when United States authorities indicted 14 people and arrested seven senior football officials on bribery and racketeering charges.

Blatter, who has been in power since 1998, was widely expected to win a fifth term as president before the current crisis engulfed Fifa.

But things are not so clear cut now.

He is understood to have widespread support among Fifa’s 209 member associations, but Prince Ali, a Fifa vice-president from Jordan, could benefit from the latest crisis to his world football’s governing body.

Prime Minister David Cameron and English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke joined those calling for Blatter to step down.

Britain’s David Gill also says he will resign from Fifa’s executive committee if Blatter is re-elected.

But support for the president came from Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has claimed the United States is meddling in Fifa’s affairs in an attempt to take the 2018 World Cup away from his country.

American officials said Wednesday as they announced a sweeping indictment against 14 soccer officials and marketing executives who they said had corrupted the sport through two decades of shadowy dealing and $150 million in bribes. Authorities described international soccer in terms normally reserved for Mafia families or drug cartels, and brought charges under racketeering laws usually applied to such criminal organizations.

The four year F.B.I. investigation grew out of an unrelated inquiry into aspects of Russian organized crime by the Eurasian Joint Organized Crime Task Force in the F.B.I.’s New York office, according to people with knowledge of the case’s origins. Authorities soon realized the potential scope of an investigation into the sporting world’s most powerful, secretive organization.

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