ZURICH — Sepp Blatter has urged FIFA to support American and Swiss investigations of corruption in football, even as both criminal cases may target him. The embattled governing body should cooperate "no matter how close to home those investigations get," Blatter wrote Thursday in his weekly FIFA magazine column. "This is the difficult path we must follow if we are serious about change," the FIFA president said. His magazine column was published the day after Switzerland's Attorney General Michael Lauber pressured FIFA to stop blocking the requested handover of Jerome Valcke's emails. FIFA suspended Valcke as secretary general last week, hours after he was linked to a proposed deal for black-market World Cup ticket sales. "We need to show that we understand the severity of this situation and that we are ready to take the right steps to fix it," Blatter wrote Thursday. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Lauber said last week at a shared news conference in Zurich that their respective cases implicating senior FIFA officials are expanding, and could yet indict Blatter. The US case alleging bribery and racketeering among FIFA vice presidents and longtime executive committee members has indicted 14 people and taken guilty pleas from four others. A Swiss case that started with FIFA's complaint last year of possible money laundering in the 2018-2022 World Cup bid contests is now looking for evidence of criminal mismanagement across FIFA's day-to-day business. Blatter has denied wrongdoing and blamed corruption on individuals outside FIFA's control. In his column, Blatter linked the criminal investigations to the need for reforming FIFA when his 18-year presidency ends in February, after a previous round of modernizing changes fell short. "However, the highly regrettable events this year have made it painfully clear those changes have not been enough," he wrote. Failing to approve reforms at the Feb. 26 election congress in Zurich would be a "betrayal" of FIFA by the 209 member federations, Blatter suggested. Some reforms, including term limits for top officials, were rejected by those same members last year in Brazil after Blatter told them that rules forced upon FIFA would later apply worldwide. Still, Blatter reminded Thursday that "millions of fans around the world ... rightly expect the highest standards from those managing the game." — AP
