In January Addo, vice-president of the African confederation, revealed that Blatter's wealthy associates in the Gulf paid cash for votes in 1998 to win their man the presidency.

Blatter's immediate response was a desperate search to find anyone prepared to attack Addo's integrity and it is now alleged that Blatter paid $25,000 to a discredited referee to make statements undermining Addo's reputation.

Addo said: 'If Blatter paid money to obtain so-called evidence against me then he is a man without integrity and does not deserve to lead FIFA. My lawyers will prepare a dossier this week for the Swiss prosecutors. I believe I have all the documents necessary.'

Addo's accusation is likely to be followed by further official complaints against Blatter of criminal fraud in handling of FIFA finances.

UEFA president Lennart Johansson yesterday renewed the call for the president's resignation in the wake of Friday's tense and bitter executive committee meeting in Zurich.

There, FIFA general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen dramatically presented a confidential, 21-page report filled with stunning allegations against Blatter, including details of the referees reportedly paid to discredit Addo.

The president tried to laugh off the accusations yesterday. Departing on another round of electioneering in China and North Korea, Blatter told a Swiss newspaper: 'I may have made a mistake now and then but no criminal actions.'

Zen-Ruffinen's report, which has shocked even the most experienced football officials and is, according to the highly regarded official, only the 'tip of the iceberg', begs to differ.

Zen-Ruffinen suggests there are cases for Swiss police action on a wide range of FIFA problems, including the mysterious disappearance of the TV cash from the Globo station in Brazil and Dentsu of Japan and also Blatter's involvement with the family of CONCACAF president Jack Warner.

Behind the scenes the leaders of European, African and Asian soccer are urgently seeking legal advice on what they should do with Zen-Ruffinen's report. Swiss lawyers will advise if the president's critics have a responsibility to deliver the dossier to state prosecutors.

FIFA vice-president David Will, of Scotland, said: 'I'm astounded by what is in the report, there is much more than I expected. I've now to look at my own responsibility as a vice-president and member of the executive committee.'

Not only does the report accuse Blatter of paying a referee $25,000 to undermine Addo's reputation, it also claims that Blatter, in front of two FIFA employees, promised an extra $25,000 'if the information provided would suit the purposes of the president'.

Expenses and accommodation were provided for two African referees, from Tunisia and Niger, to visit Zurich in secret to assist Blatter. Addo has built himself an excellent reputation in African for suspending corrupt and incompetent referees and it appears Blatter was looking for any embittered official who could be persuaded to speak out and divert attention from the original vote-buying stories.

Nothing was ever heard from these two referees, so even Blatter must have decided they were too discredited to use.

Yesterday Blatter admitted paying $25,000 to Lucien Bouchardeau of Niger but claimed it was an act of personal charity. Blatter said: 'He said to me, with tears in his eyes, that he was a poor devil and had nothing left. So I gave him $25,000 of my own money. I'm too good a person.'

However, Blatter does not explain how Bouchardeau received an invitation from FIFA to fly, at its expense, from Niger to Zurich to make his plea of poverty. Nor the reasons for Tunisia's Neiji Jouini, another referee, also making the trip to Switzerland.

Blatter's other responses have been to report Addo to FIFA's discipline committee and, claims Addo, to prevent his country, Somalia, receiving desperately needed assistance from FIFA's GOAL project. Blatter has also persuaded his favourite local court in Meilen, in the Canton of Zurich, to ban Addo from speaking out.

FIFA's executive committee was stunned after it heard Zen-Ruffinen's report on Friday. Five of the seven vice-presidents called on Blatter to stand down from the presidency. He refused, claiming only FIFA's congress can fire him.

Blatter has also agreed that he had paid $100,000 to Russian football president Viacheslav Koloskov. Members of the leadership group receive an annual honorarium of $50,000. Koloskov had been a FIFA executive committee member until 1998 but left for two years before rejoining in August 2000.

Blatter conceded yesterday that making the secret payment to the Russian, one of his most loyal supporters, while he was out of office was 'irregular' - then, bizarrely, blamed Zen-Ruffinen for not finding out in time to prevent the pay-off.

Koloskov was one of the prime movers in rallying eastern European support for Blatter at the tarnished 1998 election in Paris when it has been alleged that votes were stolen and others paid for by Middle East cash. There were also two payments of $80,000 to the Russian football federation in 1999 and 2002 that were never authorised or explained.

Mohamed Bin Hammam, a loyal Blatter supporter from Qatar and implicated in the 1998 election scandal, also confirmed the allegation that former Lebanese FA president Rahif Alameh was to receive $5,000 a month as a 'personal consultant to the president' from October 2001. That was the month Alameh, a close friend of Bin Hammam, was sacked by the Lebanese FA after an investigation by the government. 'He is a good man,' claims Bin Hammam.

There were also allegations that Edwin Snowe, the Liberian FA president, was given 160,000 Swiss francs in cash as part of the FIFA financial assistance programme. Snowe is the force behind the Friends of Blatter in Africa campaign.

On Friday in Zurich, the president's 'kitchen cabinet' of highly-paid advisers were lashing out in all directions. Guido Tognoni, fired by FIFA in the early 1990s but rehired when Blat-ter's woes began a year ago, hit out at former Euro 96 director Glen Kirton, who is supporting Blatter's rival, Africa's Issa Hayatou, in the presidential elections at the end of this month, calling him a 'gangster'.

Kirton laughed off the insult last night, questioning Tognoni's sudden change of allegiance - in 1998 he had worked for Blatter's election rival Johansson. He said: 'I remember Guido would call Blatter "Yousuf" - which everybody knew referred to Blatter's special relationship with the Arab world.'

Another Blatter supporter who will be under great pressure in the next few weeks is finance director Urs Linsi. Last week he reportedly had the locks changed at his office but if Swiss fraud detectives decide to investigate, he could be under pressure to explain why he allowed Blatter to make pay-offs of FIFA money to cronies without the consent of the elected executive committee.