Blatter to oust Zen-Ruffinen

FIFA president Sepp Blatter is poised to sack his arch critic Michel Zen-Ruffinen just hours before tomorrow's World Cup kick-off here, throwing plans for the tournament into chaos.

Blatter, who was re-elected with a massive majority in yesterday's presidential battle with Cameroon's Issa Hayatou, revealed today that he will fire his general secretary at tomorrow's emergency meeting of the FIFA executive committee.

He had told reporters following his victory that he would take 100 days before considering making structural-changes. But he snapped after reading critical comments from Zen-Ruffinen after his election win.

He said: "Friday, I throw Zen Ruffinen out the door. On Friday the executive committee is going to take care of Mr Clean. Now it is finished.

"The last negative comments by Zen-Ruffinen after my re-election were the final straw."

Zen-Ruffinen produced a damning report at the start of this month alleging abuses of power by Blatter, illicit payments and financial irregularities-Swiss prosecutors have been handed the dossier and are now considering whether to take action.

Zen-Ruffinen said: "I want to celebrate the World Cup. I have been working hard for six years and I consider it my World Cup. I want to help make it a tremendous success and once that's done we will see what happens.

"If, as expected, Mr Blatter doesn't want to work with me then I will go and do something else."

It now looks like he will have to start looking earlier than he expected.