Blatter skips women’s World Cup final: lawyer

LOS ANGELES, California: FIFA President Sepp Blatter will not attend the final of the Women’s World Cup in Canada, his US lawyer confirmed Tuesday, the first time since his election in 1998 that he has missed the climax of the showpiece event.
“Mr Blatter has informed the organizers that, for personal reasons, he will not attend the women’s World Cup finals in Canada,” attorney Richard Cullen said in comments to AFP.
A FIFA spokesperson later confirmed that Blatter, along with the football body’s Secretary General Jerome Valcke, would be skipping the event.
“Due to their current commitments in Zurich, the FIFA President and the FIFA Secretary General will remain at the FIFA Headquarters,” the spokesperson said.
Speculation over whether Blatter — the self-styled “godfather” of women’s football — would attend Sunday’s final in Vancouver has raged ever since the tournament began.
The 79-year-old announced on June 2 that he would step down from the FIFA presidency at an extraordinary congress to be held between December this year and March 2016.
That decision followed the crisis that engulfed FIFA with 18 people indicted in the United States on football-related corruption charges involving millions of dollars in bribes.
Since then, sources close to Blatter have been reported as saying he was not ruling out the prospect of going back on his decision to resign after receiving messages of support from Asian and African federations.
Blatter’s announcement that he planned to step down came just days after he had been re-elected as president.
In an interview with the BBC in May, Blatter had presented himself as a champion of women’s football.
“I consider myself a little bit as a godfather of the organisation of women’s football in Fifa,” Blatter said.
Farah adamant he is ‘100 percent clean’
LONDON: Britain’s double Olympic champion Mo Farah reiterated Wednesday he was “100 percent clean” as doping allegations continued to swirl around coach Alberto Salazar.
Significantly, Farah has not been accused of wrongdoing but the winner of the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the 2012 London Olympics feels his name is being tarnished by association and he again said Wednesday he would stop working with Salazar were the allegations upheld.
“I am not on anything, trust me,” Farah told Sky Sports News. “To be labelled something you are not and labelled a cheat is not fair: prove I am a cheat or leave me alone.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this. It is killing me, killing my family,” he added.
Last month, a BBC/ProPublica documentary alleged that former New York Marathon champion Salazar, a 56-year-old Cuban-born American, violated anti-doping rules by administering testosterone to American distance runner Galen Rupp in 2002 when Rupp — a training partner of Farah - was only 16, and encouraging misuse of prescription drugs.
Last week, Salazar published a lengthy open letter refuting the allegations against him but Kara Goucher, one of the athletes who has accused her former coach of breaking ant-doping rules, was unimpressed.
Salazar portrayed her husband, former athlete Adam Goucher, as “belligerent” and said he dismissed the couple from his Nike Oregon Project training group.
“I understand that if you read it through it looks like I’m a liar,” Kara Goucher said. “I don’t like being labelled a liar, just like anyone else.
“I want people to like me but my love for the sport is much stronger than my passion to have people like me.”