Sepp Blat­ter has re­fused to re­sign as Fi­fa pres­i­dent fol­low­ing a re­quest from Ue­fa chief Michel Pla­ti­ni.The 79-year-old Swiss held an emer­gency meet­ing with key Fi­fa of­fi­cials yes­ter­day af­ter world foot­ball's gov­ern­ing body was sub­ject­ed to yet more dam­ag­ing cor­rup­tion claims.Pla­ti­ni then made a per­son­al ap­peal for Blat­ter to quit but was told it was "too late" to re­sign.

Sepp Blat­ter: "I can­not mon­i­tor every­one all of the time... those who are cor­rupt in foot­ball are in a mi­nor­i­ty"Blat­ter lat­er vowed to re­store trust in Fi­fa and "find a way to fix things".Open­ing a meet­ing of Fi­fa's con­gress yes­ter­day, on the eve of to­day's pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, he said: "These are un­prece­dent­ed and dif­fi­cult times for Fi­fa.

"It must fall to me to up­hold re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the well-be­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion."How­ev­er, while ad­mit­ting he could not be held re­spon­si­ble for the ac­tions of a few, he con­ced­ed: "I'm sure more bad news may fol­low but it's nec­es­sary to re­store trust in our or­gan­i­sa­tion."His speech came just hours af­ter French­man Pla­ti­ni said the lat­est cri­sis had left him "ab­solute­ly sick­ened", adding: "Peo­ple have had enough, they don't want this pres­i­dent any more."

Blat­ter, who has been pres­i­dent since 1998, is seek­ing a fifth term when he takes on Prince Ali bin al-Hus­sein in to­day's elec­tion.Sev­er­al in­flu­en­tial foot­ball fig­ures had called for the vote to be de­layed af­ter sev­en Fi­fa of­fi­cials were ar­rest­ed in Zurich on Wednes­day.But Ue­fa, which gov­erns Eu­ro­pean foot­ball, de­cid­ed on Thurs­day not to boy­cott the elec­tion and will con­tin­ue to back Prince Ali, al­though some mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions, such as Rus­sia, have said they will back Blat­ter.

Ue­fa head Michel Pla­ti­ni said: "Blat­ter will con­vince the ma­jor­i­ty to vote for him... but he has al­ready lost, Fi­fa has al­ready lost" CAF, which looks af­ter the in­ter­ests of Africa, has al­so re­it­er­at­ed its sup­port for Blat­ter.So has the Asian Foot­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion, al­though one of its mem­bers, the Aus­tralian foot­ball fed­er­a­tion, has an­nounced its in­ten­tion to vote for Prince Ali.

"A big, big, big ma­jor­i­ty of the Eu­ro­pean as­so­ci­a­tions will vote for Prince Ali," said Pla­ti­ni.Dutch FA boss and for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Michael van Praag, who pulled out of the run­ning so as not to split the an­ti-Blat­ter vote, said: "He is the end re­spon­si­ble per­son in Fi­fa. You can­not al­ways con­tin­ue wash­ing your hands."

Fi­fa was plunged in­to fresh cri­sis on Wednes­day when Unit­ed States au­thor­i­ties in­dict­ed 14 peo­ple and ar­rest­ed sev­en se­nior foot­ball of­fi­cials on bribery and rack­e­teer­ing charges.In a sep­a­rate de­vel­op­ment, Swiss of­fi­cials open­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in­to the bid­ding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process­es.

Blat­ter's de­ci­sion to chair an emer­gency meet­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Fi­fa's six con­fed­er­a­tions is sig­nif­i­cant.Such gath­er­ings are rare.It al­so took place with­out two of its nom­i­nat­ed mem­bers.Jef­frey Webb, pres­i­dent of the North, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion, and Eu­ge­nio Figuere­do, pres­i­dent of the South Amer­i­can con­fed­er­a­tion, were both ab­sent af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day.

Blat­ter, who has been in pow­er since 1998, was wide­ly ex­pect­ed to win a fifth term as pres­i­dent be­fore the cur­rent cri­sis en­gulfed Fi­fa.But things are not so clear-cut now.

Blat­ter has plen­ty sup­port

He is un­der­stood to have wide­spread sup­port among Fi­fa's 209 mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions, but Prince Ali, a Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent from Jor­dan, could ben­e­fit from the lat­est cri­sis to his world foot­ball's gov­ern­ing body.Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron and Eng­lish Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion chair­man Greg Dyke joined those call­ing for Blat­ter to step down.

Britain's rep­re­sen­ta­tive David Gill al­so says he will re­sign from Fi­fa's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee if Blat­ter is re-elect­ed.But sup­port for the pres­i­dent came from Russ­ian pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, who has claimed the Unit­ed States is med­dling in Fi­fa's af­fairs in an at­tempt to take the 2018 World Cup away from his coun­try.

It's not just about the elec­tion, is it?

No, it's not. Fi­fa's en­tire fu­ture ap­pears to be at stake.Its rep­u­ta­tion has been sul­lied by cor­rup­tion claims for years now.How­ev­er, there is a sense that these lat­est de­vel­op­ments could have a seis­mic im­pact on the foot­balling land­scape.

There are two in­ves­ti­ga­tions here. One is led by the Unit­ed States, which is fo­cus­ing on bribery claims go­ing back more than 20 years and in­volv­ing sev­er­al key Fi­fa fig­ures. The oth­er, led by Swiss au­thor­i­ties, is fo­cus­ing on po­ten­tial wrong­do­ing when vot­ing took place for 2018 and 2022 World Cup host­ing rights.

How se­ri­ous are the bribery claims?

Sev­en Fi­fa of­fi­cials were ar­rest­ed in Zurich on Wednes­day on charges they re­ceived more than $150m (�100m) in bribes. Among them was Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent Webb, a huge­ly in­flu­en­tial fig­ure who holds a lot of pow­er in North Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.In to­tal, 14 de­fen­dants were charged by the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice with rack­e­teer­ing, wire fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing con­spir­a­cies in a 24-year scheme.

Jack Warn­er, a for­mer Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent who quit world foot­ball's gov­ern­ing body in 2011, was al­so among them. The US is try­ing to ex­tra­dite all sev­en of­fi­cials ar­rest­ed in Zurich. Un­sur­pris­ing­ly, all sev­en are fight­ing such a move.

What about the 2018 and2022 World Cups?

It seems un­like­ly that ei­ther Rus­sia or Qatar will be stripped of the tour­na­ments at this stage, al­though any­thing is pos­si­ble. De­spite Fi­fa's nu­mer­ous at­tempts to prove the bid­ding process was fair, ru­mours per­sist that not every­thing was above board.The lat­est de­vel­op­ment have on­ly added to the spec­u­la­tion. Nat­u­ral­ly, both Rus­sia, who were award­ed the rights to stage the 2018 tour­na­ment, and Qatar, who will host the 2022 event, are fight­ing hard. Both have al­ways in­sist­ed that they won their bids fair and square.

How is Fi­fa deal­ing with the cri­sis?

As ex­pect­ed, it is work­ing over­time to calm fears it is in melt­down.Fi­fa di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions Wal­ter De Gre­go­rio tried hard to put a pos­i­tive spin on de­vel­op­ments on Wednes­day.But not every­one be­lieved him when he claimed the in­ves­ti­ga­tions proved Fi­fa was on the right track.In an at­tempt to be proac­tive, Fi­fa has al­ready banned 11 of the 14 peo­ple charged by the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice.

But it is com­ing un­der in­creas­ing pres­sure from un­hap­py spon­sors. BBC