Sepp Blatter still says he did nothing wrong, won’t resign as FIFA president early

Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into Sepp Blatter and deals he made with Jack Warner and Michel Platini as FIFA president, but he’s not going anywhere. His lawyers issued a statement saying that he will not resign ahead of his scheduled departure date because he did “nothing illegal or improper.”

Blatter’s lawyers didn’t just say he’d done nothing wrong, but offered their side of the story amidst accusations that Blatter had been involved in an improper payment to Platini.

On the Platini matter, President Blatter on Friday shared with the Swiss authorities the fact that Mr. Platini had a valuable employment relationship with FIFA serving as an advisor to the president beginning in 1998. He explained to the prosecutors that the payments were valid compensation and nothing more and were properly accounted for within FIFA including the withholding of Social Security contributions.

This doesn’t mean that Blatter is sticking around forever, though. FIFA has planned a special congress for February where a new president will be elected, and Blatter should step down then.

But there’s plenty of time between now and then for Blatter to change his mind and run against the new field of presidential candidates. In fact, if you’re among the hundreds of millions of people who despise the man, you might want to start emotionally preparing yourself for that to happen.