Blatter calls for more women on FIFA ExCo

Sepp Blatter is disappointed that that no female members were voted onto FIFA's executive committee.

Blatter is seeking re-election for the role of FIFA president later this year and is attempting to do more to promote equality within the higher reaches of world football's governing body.

"This was hard work because the members of FIFA's executive committee are elected by the national associations in their [continental] congresses and there was never, never a proposal for a woman to be finally in FIFA," he said.

"We had to take the decision, and I did it in 2011 at the end of the congress, I said we must have at least one woman on the executive committee.

"In all the confederations, there is no woman... this macho sport, and that's a pity, we should change in the future."

Blatter has also called for Iran to end its ban on allowing women to watch football matches.

"When I travelled to Iran in November 2013, I was not only confronted with huge popular enthusiasm from football but also a law forbidding women from attending football matches," he wrote in FIFA's weekly magazine.

"I raised the topic at my meeting with the President of Iran Hassan Rouhani, and came away with the impression that this intolerable situation could change over the medium term.

"However, nothing has happened. A collective 'stadium ban' still applies to women in Iran, despite the existence of a thriving women's football organisation.

"This cannot continue. Hence, my appeal to the Iranian authorities; open the nation's football stadiums to women."