German league president calls on FIFA president Sepp Blatter to resign over kickback scandal

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN — The head of Germany’s football league has called on Sepp Blatter to resign over the FIFA bribery scandal.

Reinhard Rauball told Germany’s Welt Online that Blatter should step down as soon as possible so that FIFA can make a fresh start.

Blatter has acknowledged he knew about payments by marketing agency ISL to former FIFA chief Joao Havelange but insisted they were legal in Switzerland in the 1990s.

Blatter insists “it is difficult to measure the past by today’s standards.”

“Bribery is unacceptable and I neither tolerate nor seek to justify bribery, but this is what I am now accused of,” Blatter told Sunday’s editions of Swiss paper Sonntagsblick in comments provided by FIFA. “The Swiss Federal Court has this week proven wrong all those people, who for years have accused me of having taken bribes.

“Now it is on record what I have always said: I have never taken nor received any bribes … the people who attack me now know this is the case but still they persist. They want me out.”

Rauball also called for an extraordinary FIFA congress where the members of football’s governing body should strip Havelange of his honorary presidency.

17:25ET 14-07-12