Murky Road Ahead for World Football -- Media Watch

(ATR)The FIFA Ethics Committee has slapped SeppBlatter with a 90-day suspension from football and handed down a similar ban for secretary general Jerome Valcke and UEFA chief Michel Platini.

FIFA presidential hopeful Chung Mong-joon is now facing a six-year ban from football.The ethics panel's decision to suspend four football heavyweights dominated headlines on Thursday.

New York Times reporter Sam Borden weighs in on the rise and fall of Sepp Blatter as well as the bans that Chung, Platini, and Valcke now face.

"It was not immediately clear how Thursday's suspensions will affect the upcoming special presidential election," Borden says.

"Prince Ali bin al Hussein of Jordan, who lost to Blatter in May's election, has declared his intention to run again and, shortly after Platini's suspension was announced, he replaced Platini as the odds-on favorite to be the next president by several British bookmakers."

Several media outlets, including CNN, are reporting that Blatter's provisional ban signals the official end of his 17-year reign at the helm of world football.

"It's like the end of a Shakespearean play," CNN's John Sinnott says."Multiple bodies, with the king, the two men who would be king and their lieutenants strewn across the stage.

"Perhaps understandably, even the acting king won't be hanging around for too long."

Klaus Stoehlker, an adviser of Blatter, told BBC Sport that the 79-year-old had been "put on the touchline" but said he was confident that he would return to the helm of FIFA.

"He will be back early to hopefully organize the congress in [February] 2016," Stoehlker added."It is a pity that after 40 years in football he should have this happen to him. This is not the end.

"Sepp Blatter will have the final word."

The BBC also highlightsIOC president Thomas Bach's call for urgent reform within world football.

"Enough is enough," Bach said."FIFA cannot remain passive - they must act swiftly to regain credibility."

Telegraph reporter Ben Rumsby says Prince William and British Prime Minister David Cameron have been pulled into the controversy surrounding Chung Mong-joon.

"The Duke of Cambridge and the Prime Minister were dragged into the murky power struggle at the top of FIFA as an extraordinary corruption row erupted over England's doomed bid to host the next World Cup," Rumsby reports.

"The South Korean billionaire denied accusations that he agreed had an illicit pact with former Football Association chairman Geoff Thompson, in which Chung would back England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup finals in exchange for Thompson supporting his nation’s attempt to secure the 2022 finals.

"Chung dismissed the allegation by declaring that the only time such an agreement could have been struck was at a meeting attended by William, the FA president, and Cameron, which he described as inconceivable."

Earlier this week,Michael J. Hershman, a former member of FIFA's Independent Governance Committee, weighed in on what he thinks FIFA needs in a new president.

"If the next leader of FIFA is to have any credibility, he or she must be able to establish a track record of having advocated for reform," Hershman wrote in an op-ed for the Scottish publication Daily Record.

"The best leaders instill a sense of values and ethics within the entire organization. One can legitimately ask what Sepp Blatter did throughout his FIFA career to promote any sense of transparency and accountability within the organization."

A "cyber gang" is behind another crisis affecting fans of world football.

Business Insider Australia and the BBC are reporting that agroup of FIFA video gamers that show off their skills in YouTube videos have been targeted by hackers.

"The hackers are reported to have stolen millions of FIFA coins, the lucrative in-game currency, and deleted valuable players from teams that have been carefully crafted by the FIFA gamers," Business Insider's Sam Shead says.

"The group targeted some of the most successful FIFA YouTube stars, as well as many other well-known FIFA gamers who don't make YouTube videos."

In other news

Sophie Lubbert, a reporter for the German national daily Die Welt, features the opinions of five Hamburg locals on the city's bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

The public will participate in referendum on Hamburg 2024 on Nov. 29.

CNN International speaks with Ellen Hoog, star of the Dutch women's field hockey side, on her road to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

"I feel really excited about Rio," Hoog says.

"An Olympics is very special and it's the greatest goal, so I feel excited but not in a nervous way - I am looking forward to it. It's hopefully going to be a special year."

Compiled byNicole Bennett

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