1030 GMT (6:30 a.m. EDT)
The head of the German soccer federation says FIFA should not have given $5 million to Ireland to silence complaints about the handball which led to the country missing out on the 2010 World Cup.
FIFA only disclosed the payment on Thursday.
FIFA and the Irish soccer federation had not previously mentioned the deal, which came after a World Cup playoff in 2009 when Thierry Henry’s handball led to France’s winning goal.
German soccer federation president Wolfgang Niersbach told ZDF television on Friday that the handball “was a real injustice” and accepted the Irish were “outraged.”
But Niersbach says “you cannot compensate it with money and no court would have ruled in their favor.”
___
1005 GMT (6:05 a.m. EDT)
The president of the influential German soccer federation, Wolfgang Niersbach, says a new FIFA president needs to be elected sooner rather than later.
“For me it’s incredible the way it happened. You (Sepp Blatter) invite the whole world to a congress, you get re-elected and then four days later you resign, for whatever reason, but it’s not an immediate resignation,” Niersbach told German TV station ZDF.
FIFA said four months are needed to set up the extraordinary congress to elect the new president but Niersbach said “everything needs to go much faster.”
___
0935 GMT (5:35 a.m. EDT)
FIFA President Sepp Blatter will not attend an Olympic meeting next week in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Blatter, who has been an IOC member since 1999, was invited to Tuesday’s briefing for members by the 2022 Winter Games bidding candidates.
FIFA says Blatter already told the IOC in April he would not be attending and “his plans have not changed.”
As the head of a summer sports federation, Blatter is less committed to attend an event involving 2022 bidders Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Still, Blatter would be expected to attend the host city vote on July 31 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
FIFA has not confirmed travel plans for Blatter since an American federal investigation of corruption in soccer erupted last week.
Comment count on this article reflects comments made on Breitbart.com and Facebook. Visit Breitbart's Facebook Page.