FIFA chief Sepp Blatter target of Zurich protesters

Sepp Blatter, the controversial president of world soccer’s governing body, generally travels with a security detail. On Tuesday he needed riot police as well when demonstrators interrupted a speech he was making at a university in Zurich, Switzerland, where FIFA is based.

Blatter, whose 16 years as FIFA’s boss have been marked by allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement, was giving a lecture titled “Football as a school of life” at the university, ETH Zurich.

But he was greeted by student protesters who gathered outside the university building with a banner reading “Chase Blatter Out. Take FIFA’s Money Away,” according to the Associated Press.

About 100 demonstrators then tried to push their way into the lecture hall where Blatter spoke but were turned away by police in riot gear. A Zurich newspaper published a photo of students setting off a red smoke bomb near the lecture hall. No arrests were made.