Blatter warns of 'more bad news' for tainted FIFA

Challenger to Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency, Jordanian prince and FIFA vice president, Prince Ali bin al Hussein (R) gestures while leaving a hotel on May 27, 2015 in Zurich. [Photo/Agencies]

UEFA had called for Friday's vote to be postponed because of the corruption arrests. But other regional groups said it should go ahead and UEFA said it would not boycott the vote.

Platini said that a "very large majority" of the 53 voting European federations would back Prince Ali bin al Hussein of Jordan, the FIFA vice president who is the only challenger to Blatter in the vote.

He called on other regions to back the prince. But African and Asian groups say they are still backing Blatter.

The seven arrested football officials -- including FIFA vice presidents Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo -- remained in custody on Thursday. Six have indicated they will fight extradition to the United States, Swiss authorities said.

The Concacaf confederation for North and Central America and the Caribbean said it had provisionally dismissed Webb as its president.

Governments from around the world have waded into the increasingly bitter and political battle.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin slammed the Zurich arrests as a US attempt to oust Blatter.

"This is clearly an attempt to block the re-election of Blatter as president of FIFA and is an extremely serious breach of the principles of how international organisations work," Putin said, accusing the United States of trying to "spread its jurisdiction to other countries".

British Prime Minister David Cameron backed calls by the English FA for Blatter to resign, his spokesman said.

South Africa meanwhile hit back at US claims in their indictments that South African officials paid $10 million in bribes to host the 2010 tournament. Some bribes were allegedly handed over in a briefcase stuffed with $10,000 bundles of cash.

"When we concluded the FIFA World Cup here in South Africa we got a clean audit report," said Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, who was on the local organising committee.

"There has never been any suggestion that anything untoward happened in South Africa."