BankofAthletes - Investing in Talents

World football body FIFA on Friday said it was confident that the global credit crunch would not hit the 2010 or 2014 World Cups, revealing football's world body had concluded a 650 million dollar (514.6 million euro) insurance package to cover the events.

"To ensure the 2010 (South African) and 2014 (Brazilian) World Cups are a success - were natural disasters or other acts to occur - we have insured" the events, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said at an executive committee meeting in Zurich.

Secretary General Jerome Valcke said the insurance was protection against any event which might force either a postponement or moving a tournament to another country.

But he added this was standard practice and insisted that "there is nothing to indicate any lack of trust in the organising committee of 2010."

FIFA have insisted that South Africa are on track to hold what would be the continent's first ever World Cup.

"There has always been an insurance policy for World Cups and has to do with a natural or non-natural catastrophe or any event that could lead to the postponement of the event to another country from South Africa," Valcke said.

Blatter added that 95 percent of the 2010 budget had already been brought under contract and FIFA was on top of projected costs.

Also Friday, FIFA announced it had suspended the federations of Kuwait and Samoa after respectively failing to hold a general assembly and for management problems.

Valcke said Kosovo's attempt to join the body had been rejected and added Peru's federation was under close surveillance as FIFA maintains that there is political interference in their federation.

FIFA additionally said elections to the Polish Football Federation (PZPN) will take place as scheduled on October 30 despite the arrest of former coach Janusz Wojcik in a corruption probe.

A total of 158 people -- including referees, players, club officials and PZPN members -- have now been snared in a vast Polish football graft probe which led FIFA to threaten to bar Poland from the qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup if the vote did not go ahead.

Blatter furthermore insisted he had political backing to introduce a "6+5 plan", a means of helping to bring on young players and bolster their national teams in the face of an ongoinmg influx of foreign stars to European leagues.

The plan would oblige clubs to play at least six home nation players in a match and Blatter said politicians and sports authorities essentially backed the stance.