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Sepp Blatter wins re-election as FIFA President

By Jonathan Bass

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Sepp Blatter wins re-election bid to remain FIFA President.

Sepp Blatter will retain his status as FIFA President for another four years after defeating Jordan’s Prince Ali bin al-Hussein on Friday afternoon. This will be Blatter’s fifth consecutive term as head of the world’s game.

If ever there was a time for the embattled incumbent to fall, it would have been this election cycle. Only two days prior to the FIFA Congress, soccer’s governing body was rocked by corruption and arrests. Several high-ranking officials were indicted on racketeering charges, and are alleged to have collected over $150 million worth of bribes over the past two decades. However, Blatter was not among those arrested.

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FIFA’s voting process operates by secret ballot and names a president if one of the candidates wins 2/3 of the votes during the first round. If neither party collects the necessary amount of votes, then a second round commences where majority wins. In the first round of Friday’s session Blatter netted 133 of a possible 206 ballots, with Prince Ali collecting the other 73. Given the wide disparity and realizing there were too many swing votes to sway, Prince Ali conceded before putting the presidency up to a second vote.

In his acceptance speech Blatter stated that this will be his last tenure as president, and that he will help rebuild the association’s credibility before handing over a strong organization to his successor.

The next FIFA election will be in 2019, when whomever is selected will be only the fourth president in 50 years, and the first newly-elected one since 1998.

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