Blatter - No bid damage

President does not think England bid hurt by investigation

Last updated: 20th November 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Blatter - No bid damage

Blatter: No bid damage

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Fifa president Sepp Blatter has added his voice to those which do not believe England's bid for the 2018 World Cup has been damaged.

His comments come after Fifa executive committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii were suspended on Thursday following allegations of corruption over World Cup votes that came out in a Sunday Times investigation.

Uefa president Michel Platini has since said the investigation will not diminish England's chances of staging the event in eight years, although he feels the English media's largely negative coverage of Fifa over the years could count against them.

And, while Blatter told a news conference on Friday that he thought the 'entrapment' was 'not fair', he insisted that should not - as is feared by England 2018 - rebound on their bid, with the host nation set to be announced on 2nd December.

The Fifa president said: "Why should this have an influence on the English bid? Human beings taking decision don't look so much at the documents in front of them so I don't think they will into consideration what has been published or not.

"That's my opinion."

Clean up

Four other officials were also banned and fined and Blatter added the punishments imposed by the ethics committee gave Fifa a chance to "clean up."

He said: "No, I'm not pleased about that (the newspaper investigation methods) because this is not very fair but now we have a result it gives us an opportunity to clean a little bit whatever has to be cleaned.

"But I cannot say that it is very fair when you open traps to entrap people.

"But if... the objective is to have a clean sheet in football then I can understand it."

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