Sepp Blatter pictured inside FIFA headquarters
FIFA President Sepp Blatter stands in an office at the FIFA headquarters after a meeting of the FIFA executive committee in Zurich, Switzerland September 25, 2015. Swiss prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Sepp Blatter, the head of world soccer body FIFA, on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of funds, the Swiss attorney general's office said on Friday. It said Blatter was interrogated after a meeting of FIFA's executive committee in Zurich, and authorities carried out a search at the organization's headquarters on Friday. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

Sepp Blatter has refused to step down as president of FIFA even after the Swiss attorney general opened a criminal investigation against the 79-year-old on charges of criminal mismanagement in his role as the head of football’s world governing body.

He has been accused of signing a TV rights contract with the Caribbean FA, then headed by one-time confidant Jack Warner, which was reportedly undervalued and caused losses to FIFA while the Warner’s firm made profits worth millions of pounds in the deal. The TV rights deal is reportedly related to the broadcast of the 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cup, with arrests of several FIFA executives having already been made in this regard.

Blatter is also believed to have made a ‘disloyalty payment’ to UEFA chief and potential next head of FIFA, Michel Platini, worth around €2 million (AU $3.2 million). Both Blatter and Platini have claimed that the payment was in relation to work done by the latter between 1999 and 2002, but with the money being transferred only in 2011, the year Platini chose to withdraw from the FIFA presidential elections, which Blatter then won, the timing of the payment has attracted the attention of the Swiss attorney general.

''President Blatter spoke to FIFA staff today and informed the staff that he was cooperating with the authorities, reiterated that he had done nothing illegal or improper and stated that he would remain as president of FIFA,” Blatter’s lawyer Richard Cullen said in a statement released on behalf of the embattled president.

“On the (UEFA President Michel) 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 adviser 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,” Cullen added.

The Swiss authorities are also investigating the bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, won by Russia and Qatar respectively, on the suspicion that the bidding process was rigged and kickbacks were received by FIFA officials from the two countries.

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