FIFA says presidential election will go ahead; no re-vote for 2018, 2022 World Cups

The FIFA presidential election will go ahead as planned on Friday, while anyone hopeful of a re-vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be left disappointed.

Football's governing body confirmed that there will be no changes on either front, regardless of the extraordinary scenes in Zurich on Wednesday that saw Swiss authorities arrest several top FIFA officials on corruption charges – with plans to extradite them to the United States.

FIFA's communications director, Walter De Gregorio, said following the events of Wednesday morning that Friday's vote for presidency, in which incumbent Sepp Blatter is all but guaranteed to win a fifth term at the helm of sport's most powerful organization, will indeed be held.

Blatter, 79, was not among those indicted following Wednesday morning's raid. Barring any shocking developments, the Teflon administrator will defeat vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein in Friday's election – despite the protestations of the latter.

As for the announcement by the Swiss Federal Office of Justice that criminal proceedings have been opened into the process that awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, De Gregorio also noted that there will not be a re-vote.

"Russia and Qatar will be played, this is fact today. I can't go into speculation about what will happen tomorrow," he said at a press conference in Zurich, as quoted by ESPN FC.