Financial audit poses threat to Blatter's future

The political future of Sepp Blatter, the president of football's world governing body, Fifa, seemed increasingly unstable last night after the organisation's executive committee voted to set up an internal investigation ­ against Blatter's wishes ­ into Fifa's finances.

Thirteen members of the 24-man executive had demanded an investigation into the state of Fifa's finances following the collapse last year of Fifa's long-term marketing partner, ISL. Although one of the 13, Angel Maria Villar Llona of Spain, had been persuaded by Wednesday to publicly back Blatter, another of the president's supporters, Isaac Sasso-Sasso of Costa Rica, was absent from last night's meeting through illness. Therefore, instead of a 12-12 for-and-against vote on an investigation ­ which would have handed Blatter the casting vote against ­ the 23 members present are understood to have voted 12-11 in favour of action.

Last night's meeting came in the wake of reports claiming that some of Blatter's supporters had paid bribes to secure his election to the presidency in 1998. The investigation into the collapse of ISL is also likely to re-examine the 1998 election.

The make-up of the investigation committee is not yet known and more details are expected tomorrow. No members of the finance committee ­ which supported Blatter yesterday ­ will take part in the audit investigation, however. It has also been agreed that the investigators will be able to call on independent experts to assess Fifa's finances, which could show up detail that has not previously come to light.

Lennart Johansson, the president of Uefa, European football's governing body, who lost out to Blatter in the Fifa presidency contest in 1998, said he was "satisfied" with last night's outcome. He has been demanding an investigation into the collapse of ISL for the past eight months.

Unusually, Blatter did not come out to meet the press straight after the meeting, but the understanding was that he had had "a bad meeting". Fifa's president had earlier been buoyed by support from Pele. "In particular, Blatter brought democracy to Fifa. Now the organisation is very transparent," the influential Brazilian had said.

Before last night's emergency meeting, Fifa's World Cup Organising Committee announced that it had scrapped a ruling that teams participating in this summer's tournament would have to submit a provisional 35-man squad by 30 April. National associations will instead now have to submit a final 23-player squad by 21 May. The confirmation is likely to please England's Sven Goran Eriksson, who will not now have to disappoint 12 players from the 35-man squad and can concentrate on picking 23 names.

Fifa also announced yesterday that it had banned giant television screens in World Cup stadiums from showing any replays during matches. All the stadiums being used in Japan and South Korea will have giant screens showing the match in progress, but no replays of controversial incidents will be allowed.

The World Cup Organising Committee also rejected a request from the Cameroon FA that its players be allowed to play in the sleeveless shirts they wore during the recent African Nations' Cup.