Sepp Blatter to publish book on Fifa years

Sepp Blatter, the dethroned Fifa president, is preparing to publish a personal account of his near 18 years at the head of football’s world governing body.

Swiss firm Werd and Weber Verlag is to release the book titled ‘Sepp Blatter: Mission Football’, written by his official spokesman, Thomas Renggli.

The publicity blurb says Blatter “repeatedly had to put up with harsh reviews and prejudices” and details how the 79-year-old “learned to deal with the hostility” during his lengthy tenure as Fifa president, which came to a swift end last June.

A spokesperson for the publishers said: “It’s his very own opinion on his time at Fifa.

“It’s a very personal book, not judicially edited or sanitised at all.”

The book is scheduled to be published in Blatter’s native Switzerland in April, not in February as detailed on the publisher’s website, and an English language version is due to be published in June.

It is anticipated Blatter and Michel Platini, who was widely expected to succeed the Swiss as Fifa president, will this week learn the results of their appeals against their respective eight-year suspensions from all football-related activity.

Blatter and Uefa chief Platini had their hearings with Fifa’s appeals committee in Zurich last week after being found guilty of corruption over a “£1.3m disloyal payment” made to the Frenchman. Fifa on Friday is due to elect Blatter’s successor, with five men in contention to succeed him as president.

Meanwhile the Court of Arbitration for Sport will decide by tomorrow whether or not Fifa must adopt Prince Ali bin al Hussein’s request to use transparent voting booths in Friday’s presidential election.

Prince Ali of Jordan, one of five candidates bidding to succeed Sepp Blatter, is seeking reassurances over the voting procedure for the election and had called for a postponement if his concerns were not answered.

Fifa had dismissed Prince Ali’s plea to use the transparent polling booths, but now football’s world governing body has been asked to explain its reasons by CAS.

Prince Ali is standing for election alongside Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al Khalifa of Bahrain, Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino, South Africa’s Tokyo Sexwale and Jerome Champagne, a former Fifa deputy secretary general from France. Sheikh Salman, the Asian Football Confederation president, and Infantino are considered the favourites to succeed Blatter, who first became Fifa president in 1998.