ZURICH (SWITZERLAND) – Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter spent a week in an artificially induced coma following heart surgery last month, his daughter has told Swiss media.
Corinne Blatter said in an interview, adding the operation had been expected to be routine. “Just before Christmas, he had to go to the hospital for heart surgery.”
“But then everything became more complicated and dangerous. In total, he was in an artificial coma for over a week and was no longer responsive.”
The 84-year-old had tested positive for the coronavirus in November, his daughter said, however, he had recovered without many apparent symptoms, which were evident.
Blatter, who was FIFA president for 17 years, was suspended and was subjected to a ban by the soccer body’s ethics committee after becoming the target of criminal proceedings in Switzerland in 2015.
The proceedings, which are continuing, were expanded in November to encompass suspicions of fraud alongside those of mismanagement and misappropriation.
Corinne Blatter, speaking before a hearing her father was expected to attend within a wider-ranging complex of civil and criminal matters, said her father did not know about the new complaint lodged by FIFA, and that he has been bearing the brunt of the scrutiny over the last five years.
“I am not a medical doctor, nor am I a psychologist. But when you consider all the things my father has had to put up with in the last five years … you can imagine that he has been under a lot of pressure,” she said.
She said Blatter is now showing small but continual signs of recovery, and was released from intensive care this week.