Blatter angered by claim he was silent about FIFA corruption

BASEL, Switzerland — Sepp Blatter says it was “not acceptable” to be accused at a public event Friday that he stayed silent while likely knowing that senior FIFA officials were corrupt.

“I am not guilty,” the visibly angry former FIFA president later told reporters at the University of Basel in his native Switzerland.

Blatter had been the key speaker in a two-hour debate with a mostly student audience on problems facing world football’s scandal-hit governing body. Two protesters briefly disturbed the event with an anti-FIFA banner, chants and a whistle.

After Blatter again blamed officials in the North and South American football bodies for corruption, the session closed with the claim made by former International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Ocampo suggested Blatter had known about bribery which US federal prosecutors revealed last May in a sprawling indictment that rocked FIFA in its presidential election week.

Ocampo also said Blatter likely knew — and said nothing — about misconduct implicating long-time FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, who has denied any wrongdoing. Blatter’s right-hand man since 2007 was fired by FIFA in January, banned for 12 years by the ethics committee and is the subject of criminal proceedings opened last month by Switzerland’s attorney general.

When Ocampo finished the closing remarks, Blatter joined in applause and reached out to shake hands as his critic walked by.

Minutes later backstage, however, Blatter said he was “very unhappy” with the accusation by Ocampo, who is a visiting lecturer at Harvard University.

“It is not acceptable. It is not acceptable,” Blatter told reporters. “I was very surprised at Mr Ocampo invited here for this seminar and then to make such an accusation. Perhaps he is a little bit disappointed because he was the first candidate to be the chair of the ethics committee.”

In 2012, Ocampo was proposed to be FIFA’s first ethics prosecutor by a FIFA advisory group led by Swiss law professor Mark Pieth, who organised Friday’s event.

Ocampo’s appointment was blocked, reportedly due to the influence of then-FIFA senior vice president Julio Grondona of Argentina, who died in 2014 and has since been linked to the bribery conspiracy. Instead, FIFA picked Michael Garcia, the former US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

“I am not responsible morally [for] what the others have done,” said Blatter, also distancing himself from the FIFA ethics judge who resigned this month after being linked to a Panama-based law firm which helped wealthy clients set up offshore clients.

Uruguayan lawyer Juan Pedro Damiani was appointed in 2006 by the Blatter-chaired FIFA executive committee to the ethics panel, and won election in 2013 by FIFA member federations to retain his place.

“Why should I have known it?” Blatter said of allegations that Damiani helped set up offshore accounts for three men, including a former FIFA vice president, indicted by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. “This is again a disappointment. You should not accept such an election.”

Blatter is a target of the widening investigations by American and Swiss federal prosecutors. 

Blatter is currently awaiting a hearing date at the Court of Arbitration for Sport to appeal against his six-year ban.