51st FIFA Congress and president of the European football governing body UEFA Lennart Johansson considered the favourite to win. Johansson's rival was the Swiss-German football executive Joseph "Sepp" Blatter who had previously been an executive at the Swiss watch manufactures Longines and had served as the general secretary of FIFA since 1981. The first round of voting in the election did not produce a clear victor, with Blatter receiving 111 votes to Johansson's 80, but Johansson conceded victory. 51st FIFA Congress The 51st FIFA Congress was held between 6 and 8 June 1998, at the Equinox congress hall in Paris, France, just before
Sepp Blatter grounds for these decisions are the investigations that are being carried out by the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee." On 21 December, FIFA's ethics committee banned both Blatter and Platini from football for eight years. In February 2016, a FIFA appeals committee upheld the suspension but reduced it from eight years to six. In November 2017, American soccer star Hope Solo accused Blatter of sexual assault at the FIFA Ballon d'Or awards in 2013. During an interview with the Portuguese newspaper "Expresso", Solo stated she "had Sepp Blatter grab my ass" just before the two presented an award together