Sepp Blatter has revealed that he came close to death when he was admitted to hospital earlier this month after suffering a “small emotional breakdown”, while he also believes that the suspended Uefa president Michel Platini is “an honest man”.
The 79-year-old Blatter, currently serving a 90-day suspension from his post as Fifa’s president, was released from hospital on 12 November having been previously ordered by doctors to take time off work with stress. Blatter’s appeal against his ban was rejected by Fifa last week, with the governing body’s ethics committee due to reveal the findings of their investigations in the coming days.
Blatter admitted that the stress of the last few months had taken its toll on his health.
“I was very close [to death],” he told Swiss TV channel RTS in an interview to be aired on Wednesday. “I was among the angels singing and the devil with the fire. But it was the angels who sang.
“The pressure was enormous. If you are strong mentally, you can resist, but at some point the body says ‘no’, and here the body has reacted badly.”
Fifa’s ethics committee is believed to be seeking bans of several years over what Swiss law terms a “disloyal payment” of £1.35m made by Blatter to Platini in 2011, weeks before the former was re-elected as Fifa’s president. The payment dated back to the period between 1998 and 2002 when Platini was a special adviser to Blatter. He was paid £203,465 a year but both men argued that they had a gentleman’s agreement that Platini would get the extra money at a later date.
Both deny any wrongdoing, with Platini’s candidacy for next year’s elections on hold while the case is investigated. Nonetheless, Blatter believes the former France international can still succeed him in football’s top job.
“Platini is an honest man,” Blatter said. “If he comes back, he will be elected. And then [if] he comes back, I will return too.”
