Sepp Blatter: Fifa president's lawyers issue statement to reveal he has 'not been notified of any disciplinary action'

Fifa's Ethics Committe has recommended that Blatter be suspended pending the outcome of a Swiss investigation in the organisation's president

Fifa president Sepp Blatter (Getty Images)

Sepp Blatter has not been informed of any suspension recommended by Fifa’s Ethics Committee as confusion continues to reign over his tenure as president of the organisation.

News broke on Wednesday that 79-year-old Blatter could be suspended due to the ingoing investigation into accusations of signing a TV rights deal that was “unfavourable” to Fifa along with disgraced former Caribbean football chief Jack Warner, who made an £11m personal profit from the deal.

A decision is expected to be given from the Ethics Committee’s adjudicator “within days” over whether Blatter and Uefa president Michel Platini will be suspended until the outcome of the investigation.

However, Blatter’s lawyers, Lorenz Erni and Richard Cullen, have issued a statement on behalf of Blatter to confirmed that he has not received any news of disciplinary action being taken against him.

The statement read: “We issue this statement in response to press reports about the Fifa Ethics Committee. President Blatter has not been notified of any action taken by the Fifa Ethics Committee. We would expect that the Ethics Committee would want to hear from the President and his counsel, and conduct a thorough review of the evidence, before making any recommendation to take disciplinary action.”

Platini, who is also a current Fifa vice-president and a candidate in the election to succeed Blatter when he plans on stepping down in February, is said to be regarded as somewhere “between a witness and a suspect by Swiss authorities. Blatter is also being investigated over accusations that he made a £1.35m payment to Platini in what has been described as a “disloyal payment”.

The recommendation to suspend Blatter came from Cornel Borbely, a former Swiss lawyer who currently stands as the head of Fifa’s Investigatory Chamber following Michael Garcia’s resignation in December last year.