Blatter wins fifth FIFA term as challenger concedes

FIFA President Sepp Blatter speaks after he was re-elected at the 65th FIFA Congress in Zurich, Switzerland, May 29, 2015. Sepp Blatter has been re-elected as FIFA president for a fifth term after Jordan's Prince Ali bin Al Hussein conceded defeat at the Congress of world football's governing body on Friday.[Photo/Agencies]

ZURICH - Sepp Blatter was re-elected president of FIFA for a fifth term on Friday after his only challenger conceded defeat in an election overshadowed by allegations of rampant corruption in world soccer.

Blatter's victory came despite demands that he quit in the face of a major bribery scandal being investigated by US, Swiss and other law enforcement agencies that plunged soccer's governing body into the worst crisis in its 111-year history.

Neither Blatter nor Jordanian opponent Prince Ali bin Al Hussein got the necessary two thirds of the ballot in the first round, with Blatter securing 133 votes against 73 for Prince Ali. However, Prince Ali swiftly conceded.

"I congratulate you if you voted for Prince Ali, he was a good candidate, but I am the president now, the president of everybody," the 79-year-old Blatter said in his victory speech.

FIFA, ruled over by Blatter since 1998, was rocked this week by the arrest of seven senior officials in a pre-dawn police raid at a luxury Swiss hotel as part of an investigation into widespread financial wrongdoing stretching back for years.

Blatter has batted away the furore, relying on his network of friends to hold onto power at FIFA, which he joined in 1975.

"At the end of my term I will give back a strong FIFA to my successor. You ask me about age. Age is not a problem. You have people who are 50, they look old," he said to huge laughs.

Prince Ali, in his pitch for votes, had pledged an open, more democratic FIFA, saying: "We have heard in recent days, voices which described our FIFA as an avaricious body which feeds on the game that the world loves.

"There are no easy answers. And no blame that can be cast that will wash away the stain that marks us all," he said.

While Asian, African and Latin American states had been expected to rally around Blatter, Europe, which accounts for all but three of the countries that have ever made it to a World Cup's final match, had been keen for him to step aside.

European soccer chiefs said after the vote that FIFA had to embrace reform. "Change in my opinion is crucial if this organisation is to regain its credibility," said Michel Platini, who heads Europe's soccer confederation UEFA.

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