Blatter satisfied with outcome of FIFA probe

ZURICH (Reuters) -- FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Friday he was satisfied with the outcome of a corruption investigation which led to fines and bans for two executive committee members and four other senior officials.

"I am very satisfied, but I'm not happy, you cannot be happy when you have to sanction members of our family, it is not a pleasure, but I'm satisfied with the work down by the ethics committee," he told reporters.

"It is with optimism that I'm looking forward to the last few days before the decision days of December 2," he added.

He also said that collusion was difficult to avoid.

"You cannot avoid collusion, but if there is something wrong in such collusion, then somebody should intervene," he said. "You find collusion in politics, in elections...where two parties are enemies during the year but then they go together.

"That's collusion, this has not been banned."

Two FIFA executive committee members were banned and fined on Thursday, one for bribery, over allegations they had offered to sell their votes in the contest to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Four other officials were also banned and fined.

However, the ethics committee found no evidence of alleged collusion between the Spain/Portugal and Qatar bids.

England, Russia, Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium are bidding to host the 2018 World Cup with Japan, South Korea, Australia, United States and Qatar the candidates for 2022.

FIFA will choose the two hosts on Dec. 2