FIFA is "very happy" with the arrests of soccer officials in relation to bribery allegations shortly before its presidential elections, the organization's director of communications and public affairs said Wednesday.
U.S. authorities were granted a request to investigate the bribery claims, which date to 1990, in Zurich with Swiss prosecutors later opening separate criminal proceedings into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar.
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FIFA President Sepp Blatter was not among those arrested and FIFA's director of communications, Walter De Gregorio, said at a news conference that the governing body would "look forward to the results" of all investigations.
De Gregorio also confirmed that this week's congress and Friday's elections will go ahead as planned, and that nothing has changed in regard to the aforementioned World Cups.
"In this case, FIFA is the damaged party. People of the federal attorney are here and we cooperated with them for our own interest," De Gregorio said. "I saw tweets and media releases and comments and speculation, but let me say the general secretary [Jerome Valcke] and president are not involved in this procedure. He [Blatter] is focused on congress.
"He is quite relaxed because he knows that once again he is not involved. The rest, he will accept what will happen. We are very happy with what is happening. It is unfortunately FIFA suffering and it is a difficult moment for us. This is good for FIFA not in terms of image and reputation but in cleaning up and everything we did in the last four years. For us it is a nice day. The process goes on and we look forward to the results. Without concrete results, there is room for all sorts of speculation."
On the subject of the World Cups, De Gregorio questioned: "What do you expect? We start to speculate on redoing the whole thing?
"Russia and Qatar will be played. This is fact today, we don't go into speculation what happens tomorrow. I can say the two World Cups will be played in Russia and Qatar.
"We have congress about to start. Will it take place? Of course it will. One thing [the arrests] has nothing to do with the other. There was never such an idea to postpone neither congress nor the election. We go on with the agenda and the election as planned."