England’s Football Association has confirmed that it will not be voting in next months’s battle for the Fifa presidency.
Sepp Blatter, the current incumbent who has been in the role since 1998, faces opposition from Qatar’s Mohamed Bin Hammam, the president of the Asian Football Confederation, but the FA will have no say in who will be in charge after the June 1 vote.
On Thursday, the FA board released a statement saying they found it difficult to support either candidate in the wake of the storm Fifa currently lies under amid a wealth of corruption allegations.
The statement read: "The FA board has today agreed to abstain in the vote of the presidency of Fifa.
"There are a well-reported range of issues both recent and current which, in the view of the FA board, make it difficult to support either candidate.
"The FA values its relationships with its international partners very highly. We are determined to play an active and influential role through our representation within both Uefa and Fifa.
"We will continue to work hard to bring about any changes we think would benefit all of international football."
Prior to the release of the FA statement there had already been much speculation that the FA would take this course of action, with Swiss bigwig Blatter having reacted by saying: “I think it is a little bit strange when the number one association in the world, i.e. the FA, have two candidates in front of them and cannot make a decision which one to support.”
However, Blatter is busy as his organisation investigates corruption claims made against several Fifa executive committee members last week, on the back of two other ExCo members being suspended from voting on last year’s 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes amid scandal.
Among last week’s levelled accusations were some that Qatar made payments in exchange for votes for their successful 2022 campaign.