How the world reacted to news of Sepp Blatter’s decision to stand down as Fifa president...
Here are some reactions from people across the world regarding Sepp Blatter's decision.
Updated
Mbalula: “Sepp Blatter? We’d better not say anything because Fifa
will speak for itself ... Like all of you, it shocked us. We can only
say it’s because of the investigation, unless he’s sick. We don’t know. Sepp Blatter has been a good friend of South Africa. We will not lie about that.”
He adds: “We’ll leave the British and Americans to fight their
battles. We’ve fought colonialism and defeated it. We still fight
imperialism.”
Mbalula: “Let me tell you. It’s not a secret. We organised the
World Cup. There’s a lot of correspondence between us and Fifa, and
maybe the FBI have seized it. We don’t know. What we know is that we
paid no bribes... Whatever they stumbled across they should share with
us...” He says the $10m was “part and parcel of our policy to support our African brothers. We are told that money was misused - we don’t know.” He adds:
When we organised the World Cup we were dealing with people, not gangsters. The fact that later they turn into gangsters is not our problem. We can not check everybody with sniffer dogs.
His line is that the $10m was a valid, approved contribution to the
African diaspora in the Caribbean. Journalists ask why – if that is the
case – the payment, and the development programme, was not publicised at
the time. Alec Moemi, Director General of Sport and Recreation, says: “Many of you never saw our programmes as newsworthy, you never reported them.”
Mbalula: “We have a responsibility to defend the legacy of the
World Cup, and our country’s reputation, integrity and sovereignty. We
are not opposed to the US investigation and will not stand in the way of
it. [But] they must share their evidence for the allegations which have
negatively impacted our reputation.” He says the tournament was secured by “hard work, and effective lobbying”.
Mbalula repeats: “I unequivocally state: this payment was not a bribe”, and denies FA statements since the news broke have been contradictory. He defends the validity of the “diaspora legacy programme” and says the $10m was “not a bribe, but a duly allocated payment for an approved programme ... We
cannot understand why this is alleged to have been a bribe...
everything was on the record... emails, meetings, public statements.”
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