Blatter Scolds Pieth

Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, was apparently not happy with the recent remarks made by Mark Pieth at the EASM in Aalborg, Denmark. Graham Dunbar reports (see also World Football Insider):

Criticized on all sides after a series of scandals, FIFA's executive committee members should not be publicly targeted by the governing body's anti-corruption advisers, President Sepp Blatter said Friday.

Blatter said at a news conference that a reform drive was working and restoring FIFA's credibility. He renewed FIFA's call for world soccer to fight match-fixing and illegal betting, and added the body would seek to protect players who reported attempts to fix games.

"We are not a corrupt, or a mafia organization," he said. "It is always a question of perception and the question of reality. We are in a good mood and in a good moment, and I am sure that we will be able to succeed."

Blatter said he met the expert panel led by Mark Pieth on Thursday and corrected remarks the Swiss law professor made in Denmark last week.

Pieth had told a sports governance conference that "older" FIFA elected officials were resisting the reform proposals that Blatter invited his group to propose after bribery and vote-buying allegations damaged soccer's governing body.

Blatter said several colleagues objected to the criticism when they discussed his reform mission Friday.

"They were not happy about some declarations made by this independent committee or other officials involved there," the FIFA president told reporters, insisting: "There is no opposition in the FIFA executive committee towards the reform process."

Mark Pieth, who strongly defended Blatter in his remarks in Aalborg, has not responded to the rebuke.