The leadership of world soccer's governing body plunged into chaos on Thursday, as three of the game's most powerful figures, including Sepp Blatter, the longtime president of FIFA, were suspended amid an investigation by the Swiss authorities into suspected corruption.
In addition to Blatter, Michel Platini, who is a FIFA vice president and the head of European soccer's governing body, and FIFA's secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, who was already on disciplinary leave, were "provisionally banned" from the sport. The suspensions take effect immediately.
"The grounds for these decisions are the investigations that are being carried out by the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee," FIFA said in a statement.
A fourth executive, the former FIFA vice president Chung Mong-joon, was barred from the sport for six years and fined 100,000 Swiss francs, or about $103,000, on Thursday. Chung, a South Korean billionaire whose family heads the Hyundai conglomerate, had, like Platini, been a candidate to replace Blatter. But he has been found guilty of infringing FIFA's ethics code in connection with the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, FIFA said.
Platini, who had been seen as the favorite to replace Blatter, filed his paperwork to officially become a candidate earlier Thursday but it is unclear whether he will be permitted to stand.
The sanctions for all four men were imposed by FIFA's independent ethics committee. Richard Cullen and Lorenz Erni, lawyers for Blatter, released a statement shortly after the punishments were announced criticizing the process by which the ethics committee reached its decision and promising to contest it.
"President Blatter was disappointed that the Ethics Committee did not follow the Code of Ethics and Disciplinary Code, both of which provide for an opportunity to be heard," the statement said. "The Ethics Committee based its decision on a misunderstanding of the actions of the attorney general in Switzerland, which has opened an investigation but brought no charge against the president. In fact, the prosecutors will be obliged by law to dismiss the case if their investigation, barely two weeks old, does not establish sufficient evidence. President Blatter looks forward to the opportunity to present evidence that will demonstrate that he did not engage in any misconduct, criminal or otherwise."
The suspensions for Blatter, Platini and Valcke can be renewed for an additional 45 days after the initial 90, and it is believed that they will require a complete separation from FIFA, where Blatter has worked in various roles since 1975. In a statement, FIFA said that Blatter "is not allowed to represent FIFA in any capacity, act on the organization's behalf, or communicate to media or other stakeholders as a FIFA representative." According to a person close to Blatter, the president may dispute whether that prohibits him from going to his office each day.
The suspensions leave FIFA, as well UEFA, which runs soccer in Europe, in disarray. FIFA will now be run by an interim president, Issa Hayatou, who is the Cameroonian leader of African soccer's governing body and the most senior FIFA vice president. Hayatou, however, was reprimanded in 2011 by the International Olympics Committee's ethics commission after he admitted to receiving payments from a marketing company, which was, in the commission's view, a conflict of interest.
UEFA will be led by Spain's Angel Maria Villar, who is facing pressing issues of his own: Villar is believed to be facing an inquiry by FIFA's ethics committee over allegations that he was not forthcoming during a previous investigation into alleged corruption of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process.
"Football, not just FIFA, stands on the precipice of disaster," Chris Eaton, the executive director of the International Center for Sport Security, said in a statement. Eaton and his organization renewed the call for an independent body to take over the governance of world sport's governing groups like FIFA.
Blatter has been the president of FIFA since 1998 and for years had largely avoided any direct impact from the various scandals that have enveloped top soccer officials during his tenure. This spring, however, 14 soccer and marketing officials were arrested in connection with investigations by Swiss and U.S. authorities. Several were arrested as they gathered in Zurich for FIFA's annual congress, on charges that included racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering, and a few have been extradited to the United States.
Blatter was not among those charged in the U.S. indictments. But less than a week later, he announced — only days after winning a fifth term as president — that he would voluntarily relinquish his position. He called for a special election to choose his successor, and it was later scheduled for February. Blatter said then that while he had not done anything wrong personally, it was clear that FIFA needed immediate reform.
Late last month, however, officials from the office of Switzerland's attorney general surprised Blatter at FIFA's headquarters, seizing documents from his office and questioning him about two transactions that they was investigating. The first was a 2005 agreement for World Cup television rights that FIFA — with Blatter leading — sold to Jack Warner, the former president of CONCACAF, for a price seen as well below market value. Warner later resold the rights at a significant profit.
The second transaction was a payment of 2 million Swiss francs, or about $2.1 million, that Platini received in 2011. Platini has claimed the payment was for work he performed for Blatter nine years earlier. Platini, Swiss prosecutors said, was "in between" a witness and an accused person.
Platini has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and, earlier Thursday, pre-emptively released a statement saying that he still intended to run for FIFA's presidency despite what he termed an effort to "smear" his campaign.
In recent days, Blatter has rejected calls from major sponsors demanding that he step down. This week, the German magazine Bunte printed an interview with him in which he labeled the Swiss investigation "outrageous."
It was not immediately clear how Thursday's suspensions will affect the upcoming special presidential election. Prince Ali bin al Hussein of Jordan, who lost to Blatter in May's election, has declared his intention to run again and, shortly after Platini's suspension was announced, he replaced Platini as the odds-on favorite to be the next president by several British bookmakers.