Julio Grondona, the controversial Argentinian soccer official, announced today that he will step down as president of the AFA, the country's soccer association, in 2015, after 36 years in the post.
The 81-year-old, a senior vice president of Fifa, world soccer's governing body, said he will not seek re-election when his present tenure expires.
Grondona was re-elected AFA president for a ninth four-year term in October 2011, despite a domestic scandal over video footage that appeared to show him speaking of money laundering and embezzlement.
His re-election came days after footage emerged of Grondona and his 'right-hand man' Eduardo Deluca, the secretary of South American soccer confederation Conmebol, in conversation with Carlos Avila, Grondona's former business partner and founder of Torneos y Competencias, the Argentinian sports rights agency, and TyC Sports, the pay-television sports broadcaster, aired on Argentine channel América TV, owned by Daniel Vila.
Vila, a sworn political foe of Grondona, had long aspired to replace him as AFA president.
Grondona, a Fifa executive committee member since 1988, angered England's Football Association, the national soccer body, in June 2011, branding their officials "liars" at the Fifa Congress in Zurich when Sepp Blatter was re-elected unopposed as Fifa president.
At the Congress, FA chairman David Bernstein persisted with a call for a postponement of the presidential election, against the advice of Uefa, Fifa's European counterpart. The FA's stance was supported by just 16 other nations - and only by Scotland publicly.
Grondona, who later apologised for his outburst, remarked at the time: "We always have attacks from England which are mostly lies with the support of journalism which is more busy lying than telling the truth. This upsets and disturbs the Fifa family.
"I see it at every Congress. They [Britain] have specific privileges with four countries having one vice-president [at Fifa]. It looks like England is always complaining so please I say will you leave the Fifa family alone, and when you speak, speak with truth."
Sportcal