WHAT integrity, if any, FIFA has left is hanging by a thread.

Allegations made earlier this year of widespread corruption looked to be only the tip of a very big iceberg.

And so it has proved following the revelation that president Sepp Blatter is now under investigation on similar charges.

It can’t get much worse for a world governing body that now has the monumental task of trying to salvage vage its reputation from this wreckage.

It may never be able to do that but the only way it can do start is for Blatter to walk away now and for a snap presidential election to be called, not wait for the head honcho to go in February.

It’s one thing to state your long-term intention to step down in the aftermath of an election victory, as Blatter did, but quite another to hang on to office amid the stench of corruption and the finger pointed firmly at you.

The disgraced Jack Warner may have been banned for life from all football this week but that action is long overdue and won’t shift the spotlight for the sorry state of affairs FIFA are in.

Blatter insists he has done nothing wrong yet the very fact that he is under suspicion makes his position untenable.

The head of any other organisation in similar circumstances would have been suspended pending the result of the investigation.

Alternatively he would be quietly ushered out of the back door and replaced.

But Blatter has too much power and influence and nobody is prepared to stand up and say enough is enough.

The longer Sepp Blatter stays, the more football’s image will take a kicking.