Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini await FIFA fate ahead of election

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are expected to have their respective eight-year suspensions from all football-related activity upheld this week as FIFA delegates prepare to gather in Zurich to elect a new leader.

Former FIFA president Blatter and UEFA chief Platini had their appeal hearings last week after being found guilty of corruption over a €1.6m disloyal payment made to the Frenchman - and are already preparing to take their cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Meanwhile the corruption scandal which has rocked the game for the past nine months will cast an inevitable shadow over the procedure to replace Blatter, which will conclude next Friday.

Law enforcement agencies in the US and Switzerland are reportedly poised to make more arrests following two high-profile raids on the hotel accommodating FIFA delegates last year.

Seven officials were arrested by Swiss authorities acting on behalf of the US in May, two days before Blatter's short-lived re-election, and two more were detained in a similar raid in November.

Five candidates remain in the race to succeed Blatter, with Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain the clear favourite ahead of the FA's favourite candidate, UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino.

Former FIFA vice-president Prince Ali of Jordan, Frenchman Jerome Champagne and South African Tokyo Sexwale are also on the ballot, but are considered outsiders.

Salman's campaign has been tarnished by his nation's human rights record following its brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 2011, something with which he maintains he had no involvement.

Meanwhile Infantino, who has risen to become the closest challenger to Salman, is inevitably blighted by his association with Platini's regime at UEFA.

One more high-profile controversy could render the election irrelevant and bring an end to FIFA for good, according to FA chief executive Martin Glenn.

In quotes published by the Guardian, Glenn said: "There are a lot of good things that FIFA does, so even if it was wound up and called something else, it would still be doing a lot of good things it's doing today.

"People love the World Cup, so we want the World Cup to be run well. And how would it be run well?

"You can speculate, if there was another car crash at FIFA, football would survive, and it will survive by people organising it differently."