FIFA president Sepp Blatter faced an ethics committee over corruption allegations, as his main rival for football\'s top job, Mohamed bin Hammam, ended his campaign for Wednesday\'s presidency election amid a bitter war of words.
 

Mohamed bin Hammam pulled out of the race to oust FIFA president Sepp Blatter (pictured on May 9), just hours before facing the ethics committee of football\'s world governing body over bribery allegations. (AFP/File/Fabrice Coffrini)

Bin Hammam\'s decision came just hours before both the Qatari and Blatter were scheduled to face the ethics committee of football\'s world governing body over bribery allegations.

As Blatter was due to respond to claims that he knew about cash payments at the centre of a probe targeting bin Hammam, the latter quit the presidency race saying he was "hurt and disappointed" and did not want to see FIFA\'s name "dragged more in the mud".

"It saddens me that standing up for the causes that I believed in has come at a great price -- the degradation of FIFA\'s reputation," said the 62-year-old Qatari, who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform and had waged a bitter war of words with long-serving Blatter.

Bin Hammam had demanded the corruption investigation be widened to include the Swiss-born Blatter on Thursday as the two men prepared to contest a June 1 election for control of FIFA.

Two days earlier, bin Hammam, FIFA vice-president Jack Warner and two Caribbean Football Union officials had been summoned to the ethics committee to answer corruption allegations.

Bin Hammam and Warner were targeted after Chuck Blazer, general secretary of regional football body CONCACAF, reported possible misdeeds during a May 10 and 11 meeting in Trinidad.

British media reports said bin Hammam and Warner are accused of offering $40,000 (28,000 euros) in cash gifts to national associations at the Trinidad conference in return for their votes in the presidential election.

A FIFA statement on Friday said Blatter, 75, had been summoned to appear before the ethics committee to answer claims that Warner had told him in advance of alleged payments made at the meeting.

Blatter has denied suggestions from bin Hammam that he orchestrated the charges against the man seeking to unseat him, dismissing them as "ludicrous".

Bin Hammam duly appeared before the committee mid-afternoon on Sunday arriving from his luxurious five star Zurich hotel "Baur au lac" and subsequently left without speaking to the assembled press to return to his hotel.

Warner had insisted on Saturday he had not committed "a single iota of wrongdoing" and warned that a "tsunami" would soon hit FIFA.

"I tell you something, in the next couple of days you will see a football tsunami that will hit FIFA and the world that will shock you," Warner said.

"The time has come when I must stop playing dead so you\'ll see it. It\'s coming, trust me. You\'ll see it by now and Monday."

Former IOC vice-president Dick Pound, a former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency who was at the forefront of uncovering scandals involving Salt Lake City the host of the 2002 Winter Olympics, told the BBC that countries could form a breakaway association from FIFA if the current problems are not solved.

"If FIFA is not going to do the game any good, the game may have to do something to FIFA," said Pound, a Canadian lawyer.

"You could withdraw from FIFA, for example, and say we\'re not satisfied that the organisation is not being properly run and it isn\'t a credit to the sport we know and love, so let\'s have an alternative.

"That\'s one possibility. It has been done in other sport."

But incumbent Blatter got a vote of confidence from German legend Franz Beckenbauer, who insisted that the Swiss national was still a credible FIFA president.

Retiring FIFA executive committee member Beckenbauer, who played in and managed German World Cup winning teams, told Radio Five Live\'s Sportsweek: "He (Blatter) did a wonderful job. It\'s not easy. FIFA is like the United Nations - we have 208 members.

"It\'s not easy to handle, but I think Blatter and his staff are doing a wonderful job.

"I don\'t know what\'s going on in the next days, but in general it\'s my opinion it\'s very, very bad," he said, dubbing the corruption allegations a "disaster" for FIFA.