THE BRITISH prime minister, David Cameron, has launched his most savage attack yet on Fifa’s credibility and called Sepp Blatter’s re-election as president “something of a farce”.

During prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons, Cameron said his experience as part of the England 2018 bid delegation to Zurich in December – which ended in humiliation with just two votes – had left him with a low opinion of what he then called the “murky” world of international football politics.

He said Fifa’s credibility had hit an “all-time low” and called on it to be more transparent and accountable. “I have seen football governance at an international level and I wasn’t that impressed by what I saw,” Cameron said. “Fifa’s reputation is now at an all-time low and obviously the election with one candidate was something of a farce but it has to become more transparent and more accountable.”

Blatter’s challenger, Mohamed bin Hammam, withdrew from the election just hours before he was suspended along with Concacaf’s Jack Warner over bribery allegations levelled by a fellow Fifa executive committee member, Chuck Blazer. The 75-year-old incumbent president was elected unopposed for a fourth term amid a volley of calls from politicians, the media and sponsors for Fifa to reform.

“They have got to prove that they are actually capable of doing the job that they are meant to. But ultimately change has got to come from within football and I am sure the FA will want to play a very major role in helping to bring that about,” Cameron said.

The FA’s chairman, David Bernstein, launched a doomed attempt to postpone the election, a move believed to have been backed and encouraged by the government.

Blatter has unveiled a new “zero-tolerance plan” and promised a “council of wisdom” to help overhaul Fifa’s image, but he attracted only derision over his plan to appoint the Spanish tenor Placido Domingo to it, alongside the former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and the Netherlands legend Johan Cruyff.

Fifa’s ethics committee is investigating allegations that Bin Hammam and Warner offered 25 Caribbean Football Union delegates cash bribes of $40,000 (€27,000) at a meeting in Trinidad on May 10th-11th. Bin Hammam and Warner deny wrongdoing.

Most of the 25 associations called to a hearing in Miami this week refused to turn up.

Switzerland’s government is to ask Interpol if the agency’s independence is affected by accepting a $20 million (€13.7m) donation from Fifa. The Swiss federal council has promised to raise the issue at Interpol’s general assembly. Fifa is funding Interpol for a 10-year project in Singapore to help tackle match-fixing. Guardian Service