The Fifa presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon has threatened to sue Sepp Blatter for more than $100m in “damages and compensation” in Zurich.
Chung, who said earlier this week he was being targeted on spurious grounds by the Fifa ethics committee to force him out of the race to succeed Blatter, said he had been advised he could sue the outgoing president for embezzlement.
The South Korean sat on Fifa’s executive committee for 17 years until 2011 but claims he was a lone voice of criticism against Blatter for much of that time.
“Like the dungeon in the Fifa HQ, Fifa has become a very secretive place. In an age when can find out the salary of a company president or a PM any time, we still don’t know president Blatter’s salary,” said Chung, speaking at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in London.
“For Blatter to get paid without authorisation of the executive committee is embezzlement. I plan to sue Mr Blatter on his embezzlement in court.”
Asked how much Blatter could be liable for, Chung pointed towards the $100m that Fifa had to pay in 2006 to settle a court case brought by Mastercard over a Visa sponsorship deal.
Chung said he had been advised by his Swiss lawyer that he could sue Blatter for “damages and compensation proportionate to the damage he inflicted on Fifa”.
He said that if he was successful, any damages should go back to Fifa for investment in football development.
He said that an allegation regarding vote trading with England, over a deal said to have been sealed in front of prime minister David Cameron and Prince William, had been dropped by the Fifa ethics committee.
And he argued that a second allegation, that he had broken rules by writing to fellow executive committee members in 2010 to propose a global development fund worth $777m, had already been investigated and cleared.
Chung claims the charges are politically motivated and that the ethics committee acts as Blatter’s “hitman”.
“Mr Blatter, in short, is a hypocrite and a liar. Whenever I speak to football leaders, most of them agree that Mr Blatter is corrupt,” said Chung.
“Fifa is in total meltdown and his dynasty is coming to an end, yet still few dare to speak up against him.”
But the South Korean scion of the Hyundai motoring empire refused to say whether he actually voted for England in the controversial 2018/2022 race, pointing to Fifa rules governing the secret ballot. The morning after England received just two votes, sources claimed Chung had reneged on an agreement to trade his vote. But Chung says there was no such deal.
Blatter has vowed to hang on to the Fifa presidency until February despite four major sponsors on Friday joining calls for him to stand down and implement an external, independent review body.
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation against Blatter over a TV contract awarded to the disgraced former Fifa official Jack Warner for below its market value and a £1.3m “disloyal payment” to the Uefa president Michel Platini.
Blatter told a German magazine on Wednesday that the Swiss investigation was “outrageous”. This is just an investigation, not an indictment,” he told Bunte. “I will fight until 26 February. For myself. For Fifa. I am convinced that evil will come to light and good will prevail.”Meanwhile Uefa president Michel Platini, under huge pressure to explain why he received £1.3m from Blatter nine years after it was contractually due, has declined calls to explain himself more fully.
“The president currently feels that he has given satisfactory explanations to the authorities that are dealing with this case,” said Uefa director of communications Pedro Pinto. “Publicly, he feels there is nothing else to add because he feels he has does nothing wrong and therefore does not need to justify himself publicly at the moment.”
