(Reuters) – The head of the German Football Federation (DFB) called on Thursday for an emergency meeting of FIFA’s executive committee after President Sepp Blatter was suspended for 90 days by the governing body’s Ethics Committee.
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FIFA’s next executive committee is not until December and the organisation is currently being headed by interim president Issa Hayatou of Cameroon as Swiss and U.S. pursue their investigations into alleged corruption in the sport.
DFB president Wolfgang Niersbach said urgent meetings within FIFA were needed to deal with the crisis.
“We need as soon as possible an extraordinary meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee,” Niersbach told reporters in Dublin, where the national team is playing a Euro 2016 qualifier.
He repeated his call for Blatter to resign.
“The future can only be constructed without the current president, without Sepp Blatter. That would be a sign of a new start and would be a mark for everyone that cleanliness was returning to football.”
Niersbach was one of the key backers of UEFA president Michel Platini in his bid to replace Blatter in an election next February.
But after Platini also received a 90-day ban from FIFA on Thursday, Niersbach said it was now unclear whether Platini could sustain his candidacy.
The call was swiftly backed by Asian soccer chief Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, who said the meeting was vital to bring stability to world football.
“These are exceptional circumstances and that is why we need the meeting. Only together will we overcome these difficult times,” the AFC president said in a statement published by his federation.
(Reporting by Simon Evans, additional reporting by Brian Homewood; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Alison Williams)
