Joseph Blatter must step down as planned as FIFA president and not change his mind if football's ruling body wants to reform itself, the chairman of its independent audit and compliance committee, Domenico Scala, said on Sunday.
"For me, the reforms are the central topic. That is why I think it is clearly indispensable to follow through with the initiated process of president's change as it has been announced," Scala said in a statement.
The remark came after a Swiss Sunday paper, Schweiz am Sonntag, suggested that Blatter may want to remain president after all, citing sources close to him. The report said that Blatter was reconsidering because he felt honoured that federations from Asia and Africa are aiming to convince him to stay on.
The German football federation struck a similar line as Scala, with spokesman Ralf Koettker saying: "We only know the media reports from Switzerland which confirm our clear position: The resignation announced by Blatter must now take place in a formal way as soon as possible."
Blatter, 79, has been FIFA president since 1998 and was re-elected for a fifth term by the FIFA congress on May 29.
He announced four days later he will step down, amid two corruption probes against football officials which saw the arrest of seven people in Zurich two days before the congress and the indictment of 14 overall in one of the investigations conducted by American authorities.
Blatter said he would work on reforms together with Scala until his successor is elected at an extraordinary congress in late 2015 or early 2016.
His daughter Corinne ruled out the possibility that he was reconsidering.
"There is nothing more to say, given the announcement by my father from June 2," she told the website of Swiss paper Blick.
