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Sepp Blatter’s 17-year reign as boss of crisis-hit Fifa could come to an end on 16 December.
The BBC has learned that is the likely date for an emergency meeting in Zurich to decide his successor.
Representatives from all 209 member associations will be invited to the Swiss city to vote in a new presidential election.
Blatter, 79, quit as president of world football’s governing body just four days after being re-elected last month.
The Swiss tended his resignation amid two corruption probes of his organisation.
Seven Fifa officials were arrested on 27 May following a dawn raid on a luxury hotel in Zurich.
They were among 14 officials and associates indicted by United States authorities on racketeering and bribery charges.
Swiss prosecutors have also begun a criminal investigation into how the rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were awarded.
There is a long list of potential successors for Blatter.
Among the possible candidates is Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, who lost out to Blatter in last month’s election.
A final decision on the date for a presidential election is not expected to be made until July, when Fifa will hold an extraordinary meeting of its executive committee.
But it is believed holding an emergency congress in mid-December is Blatter’s preferred option.
That would give him just six months to devise and implement the reforms he has promised before leaving the organisation he has been a part of for more than 40 years.
Domenico Scala, Fifa’s independent head of audit and compliance, outlined last week that the process to replace Blatter would happen between December 2015 and March 2016.
Sorokin insists that no rules were broken
With the threat of further criminal indictments being handed down from US law enforcement agencies in the coming weeks or months, it appears Blatter has no desire to extend his tenure into 2016.
Meanwhile, a delegation of Fifa officials, led by secretary general Jerome Valcke, is in Russia, visiting one of the sites for the 2018 World Cup.
There have been suggestions the tournament could be stripped from the Russians if any wrongdoing is exposed by the new investigation into the bidding process.
However, Alexei Sorokin, head of the local organising committee, told BBC’s HARDtalk that the bid was clean, transparent and “done in accordance with all the practices that are in place in Fifa”.
BBC
