Sepp Blatter has announced that he will stand down from his role as Fifa president in 2006.

Blatter said that he would leave at the end of his second four-year term as the head of football's world governing body.

"I have said I am in the second half of the football game," Blatter told Sport Business magazine.

"I am now in the second term and at the end of it I will be 70 years old. I think it will be the correct time then to leave the organisation."

Blatter was re-elected as president in May beating Cameroon's Issa Hayatou, despite accusations of financial mismanagement and corruption.

He said he would begin considering a suitable replacement in 2004, the year in which Fifa celebrate their 100th anniversary.

Blatter added: "Let me go first to the 2004 centenary festivities and then at that time I will be able to foresee who should or could be in such a position."