FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his possible successor Michel Platini have been provisionally suspended for 90 days by the global soccer body’s ethics committee, after they were named in a Swiss corruption case.
The committee also handed a similar suspension to FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke, who had already been put on leave by the soccer body.
It also banned former FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-joon for six years and fined him about $140,000.
The suspensions mean Cameroon’s Issa Hayatou and Spain’s Angel Maria Villar are in line to take over as interim heads of soccer’s world and European governing bodies.
FIFA’s statutes say that the most senior vice-president will stand in for the president of the organisation. That position is currently held by Hayatou, president of Africa’s football confederation (CAF).
Spanish Football Federation president Villar is positioned to take over from Platini as he is the European governing body’s highest-ranking vice-president.