(REUTERS) – FIFA president Sepp Blatter says he will stand down in 2015 if he is re-elected in June.
You know I aspire to another four years. These will be the last four years for which I stand as candidate,” he said in a speech to the UEFA Congress in Paris.
Blatter faces a challenge from Mohamed Bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation at the FIFA Congress in Zurich on June 1.
The 75-year-old Swiss, formerly FIFA’s secretary general, has held his post since 1998 and is standing for a fourth term.
Both Blatter and his Qatari opponent are in Paris as guests of UEFA.
“We have the task of bringing to an end the adventure we started in Marrakech in 2005,” said Blatter referring to that year’s FIFA Congress, the first to be held in Africa, but without enlarging.
Both men spent part of Monday at the same luxury hotel near the Arc de Triomphe where members of all 53 European associations are gathering.
Also present was American journalist Grant Wahl, who hopes to stand as a protest candidate.
Blatter underlined the challenges facing FIFA, mentioning match-fixing, illegal betting and the erosion of respect for match officials.
He applauded UEFA’s experiment with extra assistant referees, seen as an alternative to goalline technology.
“Football is beset by little evils throughout the world, it’s just a game, but in games one tends to cheat,” he said.
“There are forces wanting to grab the game, to imprison the game, to keep it captive, to use means that have nothing to do with respect.
“At the FIFA Congress we will have zero tolerance on the pitch, more education, more respect towards the referees and zero tolerance beyond the pitch.
“In Europe, there is a revolutionary vision of referees. Suddenly we have additional assistant refs, five or even six.”
FIFA’s 208 member associations have a vote apiece in the presidential election which will be held in Zurich on June 1 and with 53 members, more than other confederations, UEFA is one of the key regions.
Blatter, who has held the post for 13 years, declined to talk to reporters and delegates would not comment on where their preferences lay.
Bin Hammam, formerly a close personal friend of Blatter, said that football was stagnating under the Swiss’s leadership.
“Mr Blatter came wanting eight years, two mandates, then 12 years and three mandates, and now four mandates and actually nothing is changing in the last three or four years,” Bin Hammam said.
“I am someone who has been contributing to football through my presidency of the Asian confederation, my love for football and my membership of the FIFA executive committee and I don’t see anything is moving, anything is changing.
Earlier on Monday, Bin Hammam met Nicolas Leoz, president of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL).
Leoz, who, like Blatter and Bin Hammam, is a guest of UEFA, told Reuters that CONMEBOL, whose 10 members are expected to vote as a block, had not decided on their candidate.
Meanwhile, Wahl was attempting to find one association to provide written backing for his vote before the April 1 registration deadline.
The American said he had been in contact with more than 150 associations.