Zürich, 3 August 2000 - FIFA has rejected a request from the South African Soccer Association for the result of the July 6 vote on the allocation of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ to be submitted to arbitration.

In a letter faxed from Zurich to Johannesburg by the deadline set by SAFA, FIFA General Secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen said that while FIFA understood South Africa's disappointment at the outcome of the vote, it did not perceive the need to enter any kind of arbitration proceedings.

He wrote: "Arbitration implies that there is a dispute between two parties and that concrete reproaches are made to one party by the other. Your letter does not indicate in what way the voting has, according to you, been violated. Neither does your letter mention which articles of association of FIFA and which provisions governing the voting procedure have allegedly been violated, nor what is the fraudulent behaviour of certain individuals to which you refer."

SAFA had referred to Article 59 of the FIFA Statutes in calling for the matter to go to arbitration. In the vote by the 24-man FIFA Executive Committee on 6 July, the result of the final round of voting gave Germany 12 votes and South Africa 11, with one abstention. As Mr. Zen-Ruffinen stressed again in his reply to SAFA, the voting had been conducted in full conformity with applicable Swiss law, supervised by a Swiss public notary.

The FIFA Executive, meeting today in Zurich, had concurred with the opinion of the FIFA President, Joseph S. Blatter, that SAFA's action had not been appropriate.

Source- FIFA