GENEVA (AP) – The Sepp Blatter era at FIFA is set to finally end Friday when soccer’s scandal-scarred world body picks a new president after nine months of crisis.
An election meeting designed to give FIFA a fresh start with a new leader could yet be overshadowed by its criminally corrupt past.
Voters return to Zurich this week unsure who is the next target of federal law enforcement agencies in the United States and Switzerland, who have sent FIFA into meltdown with waves of arrests, extraditions and guilty pleas.
Swiss prosecutors could decide this week is best to meet key witnesses in their widening case. Many soccer officials are making possibly their last working trip to Switzerland until May 2019, when the next scheduled FIFA election should be held in Zurich.
At the last election in May, Blatter won a fifth presidential term two days after FIFA’s favored five-star hotel in Zurich and its own headquarters were raided. The pressure of criminal investigations soon forced Blatter from his beloved FIFA in his 41st year on the payroll.