Sepp Blatter continues on a streak of bad news. His spokesman, Thomas Renggli, announced that the former FIFA president had been in the surgery room due to skin cancer. Apparently, it was a minor procedure to remove a manifestation of dead cells accumulating in his left ear. He was discharged from the hospital on Thursday, and he is currently in his residence getting some bed-rest.
This is the second time the man receives medical help in less than a year. A now infamous Sepp Blatter had to stay several days at a hospital in Zurich due to a sudden collapse in October 2015. The doctors said stress was the primary cause, and he needed to rest. This happened shortly after he was suspended from his post by the FIFA ethics committee. Federal agencies from Switzerland were investigating the eight presidents of one of the most profitable organizations in the world.
There is a very curious tendency among some of the members of the group. It seems every time one of them is accused of something, their health gets affected. So was the case with Dr. Nicolas Leoz. IN 2013, the FIFA ethics committee started an investigation after discovering some irregularities with payments issued to members of the organization. A lot of big names were involved in the infamous scandal including Joao Havelange, Blatt’s predecessor, Ricardo Teixeira and Nicolas Leoz. In fact, one week before the FIFA announced that the last two had accepted illegal payments, Dr. Leoz resigned to his position as the president of the South American Football Confederation. At the time, Sepp Blatter was found innocent of any criminal behavior
Blatter is scheduled for court in August
But justice finds its ways, and in 2015, Sepp Blatter was now in the eye of the hurricane altogether with UEFA’s president, Michel Platini. According to the accusation, Blatter had authorized a payment of almost two million Swiss Francs for Platini. The former FIFA president alleged that they had a verbal agreement, and the money was included in it. However, FIFA’s ethics committee thought otherwise. On December 21, both presidents were forbidden from soccer for eight years. Which means, they could not take part in any official activity associated with the sport. In 2016, the defending lawyers filed an appeal, but they only could reduce it to 6 years as the ban remained.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is going to receive Blatter and his legal team on August 25. The Swiss man hopes the appeal will go better in a different court. In February, the FIFA ethics committee received him, and even though they reduced the sentence, they withheld the ban as they considered the man had to be punished for the sake of FIFA’s reputation, and they are not the only ones to think so.
On a very unexpected move, FIFA’s major sponsors released a public statement asking for Blatter’s resign for the “good of the organization.” The companies signing the document included Coca-Cola, Visa Inc, McDonalds, Budweiser and many others.
Source: CTV News