Olympics: Fifa boss Blatter wants IOC age limit removed

Olympics: Fifa boss Blatter wants IOC age limit removed

SOCHI - World football boss Sepp Blatter wants the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to scrap its age limits for members, saying they should be voted out only if they are incapable of performing their duties.

Changes implemented in the wake of the Salt Lake City Winter Games bribery scandal mandate that IOC members must resign at 70 if they joined from 1999 onwards. Members who joined before 1999 have an age limit of 80.

The 77-year-old Blatter, who has been an ex-officio IOC member since 1999 following his election to the Fifa presidency a year earlier, has yet to decide whether he will run for another term as head of world football's governing body.

The age limits apply only to individual, not ex-officio, IOC members.

Blatter said Fifa had conducted its own study and found that age limits could be discriminatory and the IOC should scrap them.

"We concluded that imposing an age limit is an act of discrimination. What needs to be changed can be done by a democratic way," he told an IOC session on Thursday.

"Simply not elect a member not because of age but because they are not able to do the work," the Swiss said. "It is not normal to impose age limits."

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