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Photographer: Michel Buholzer/AFP via Getty Images Photographer: Michel Buholzer/AFP via Getty Images

authorities opened a criminal investigation against FIFA chief Joseph “Sepp” Blatter as a widening bribery scandal engulfed the man long seen as world soccer’s unassailable kingmaker.

Switzerland’s attorney general, in a statement Friday, said he was looking into suspected criminal mismanagement and misappropriation by Blatter, the 79-year-old who has controlled FIFA for a 17-year span marked by growing allegations of corruption and bribery.

The announcement imperils Blatter’s plan to remain atop the governing body until a new chief can be installed early next year, a bid intended to help the organization move past the biggest crisis in its 111-year history. It also casts a cloud over the transfer of power: Swiss prosecutors said they asked bribery-related questions of Michel Platini, who was widely considered Blatter’s likely successor.

Letter from Swiss prosecutors on criminal proceedings against Sepp Blatter Swiss Office of the Attorney General

Speculation over Blatter’s fate mounted earlier today when FIFA scrapped a press conference scheduled for after a meeting of its executive committee. In fact, Swiss prosecutors were questioning Blatter and Platini early in the day, Attorney General Michael Lauber’s office said in a statement. Prosecutors also searched Blatter’s office and seized data, Lauber said.

The Swiss authorities, while disclosing criminal suspicions against Blatter, haven’t brought charges. They said they are exploring allegations that Blatter made an illicit payment of 2 million Swiss francs ($2 million) to Platini. The Frenchman, who denied any wrongdoing, was spoken to as a person of interest, they said.

Caribbean Ties

Switzerland is also looking into allegations that Blatter signed a contract with Caribbean soccer officials in 2005 “that was unfavorable for FIFA.”

Read the full statement here.

FIFA, in a statement, said it is cooperating and assisted Swiss authorities’ searches and interviews today. The statement made no mention of Blatter, and the organization didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Blatter is cooperating with the probe, his U.S. attorney Richard Cullen said in a e-mailed statement.

Confident

“We are confident that when the Swiss authorities have a chance to review the documents and the evidence they will see that the contract was properly prepared and negotiated by the appropriate staff members of FIFA who were routinely responsible for such contracts, and certainly no mismanagement occurred,” Cullen said.

Platini said in a statement e-mailed by UEFA that the money he received “relates to work which I carried out under a contract with FIFA and I was pleased to have been able to clarify all matters relating to this with the authorities.”

Blatter came under swift pressure to step down.

“The criminal investigations at FIFA have now reached the very top, showing that the organization is not fit for purpose,” Cobus de Swardt, managing director of Transparency International, said in a statement. “It needs independent oversight immediately. No statement from the current management about reform can be trusted.”

May Arrests

The Swiss investigation into Blatter marks the highest reach of a probe that emerged earlier this year. In May, U.S. authorities, in tandem with Swiss officials, shook the soccer world with a dawn arrest of world soccer officials in Zurich on allegations of corruption.

By last week, the scandal had claimed Blatter’s chief lieutenant: Secretary General Jerome Valcke was en route to 2018 World Cup host Russia when FIFA suspended him immediately pending an investigation into allegations he was involved in a scheme to sell tickets to last year’s tournament in Brazil at inflated prices. FIFA handed over Valcke’s e-mails to Swiss authorities yesterday, the attorney general’s office said Thursday.

Earlier Allegations

Since Blatter was elected in 1998, FIFA has battled allegations of wrongdoing against senior officials. Those included allegations of kickbacks related to FIFA officials’ vote on venues for the World Cup, which generates about $5 billion, as well as other scams related to the sale of television rights and ticket sales.

Blatter, re-elected to a fifth term in office just days after the Zurich arrests, said he would make way for a new president. He characterized that not as an admission of guilt, but as a bid to ease pressure on his embattled organization. But FIFA’s reputation continued to be battered by criticism from longtime allies, including sponsors Coca Cola and Visa.

TV Contracts

The Swiss criminal investigation into Blatter widened a probe opened there in May, into the controversial award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar.

Last week, attorney general Lauber confirmed his office was looking into whether Blatter breached his fiduciary duties by signing a television rights contract with former FIFA vice president Jack Warner. Warner, a Caribbean politician, was one of 14 people charged by the U.S. Department of Justice in May.

Reform Proposals

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch warned this month that she may seek more arrests. FIFA’s compliance head, Domenico Scala, has urged the body’s leaders to enact term limits and make disclosures on salaries to bring transparency to the organization.

Nellin McIntosh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn, declined to say whether the U.S. is investigating Blatter, Platini or the alleged bribe. Prosecutors in Brooklyn are overseeing the U.S. corruption case unsealed in May against nine international soccer officials and five corporate executives.

So far three people have been brought to the U.S. to face those charges while extradition proceedings remain pending for others.

House of FIFA

The Swiss focus on top FIFA officers in recent days brought a sense of anticipation earlier today as dozens of journalists waited for two hours for a news conference that had been scheduled at world soccer’s complex in Zurich, the so-called House of FIFA. As the appointed hour passed, security men prevented journalists from approaching the glass-and-steel auditorium. No FIFA staff emerged to explain why the press conference had been canceled.

Outside the press center sat a fountain fashioned out of a tree trunk, that spoke to Blatter’s prominence over FIFA and in his native Switzerland. The fountain was engraved with a message of thanks from his hometown, Visp, thanking “Sepp Blatter, honorary citizen.”

— With assistance by Roxana Zega

(Adds comment from Platini in 10th paragraph.)