Fifa president Sepp Blatter has responded to Michel Platini's wishes for Uefa nations to get extra spots at future World Cups by insisting football no longer revolves around Europe.
Blatter is in the election race to preside over Fifa for a fifth term, something he insisted he would not do when he was re-elected in the role without competition in 2011.
Platini has kept his place in charge of Uefa and has taken aim at his Swiss counterpart by insisting "we Europeans need more teams at World Cup 2018 - if we talk about the top 31 teams in Fifa's ranking system then 19 are European."
However, Blatter has taken a swipe back at Platini by claiming it has been his career-long mission to take footballing dominance away from the grip of Europe.
"The world is no longer Eurocentric," he wrote in Fifa's magazine The Weekly .
"In my 40 years at Fifa I have regarded it as my most important task to lead football out of Europe. We have succeeded, but the process is not at an end yet."
Blatter is vying with Portugal's Luis Figo, Jordan's Prince Ali bin al-Hussein and Netherlands' Michael van Praag for a place at the helm of Fifa, with the election date set on May 29.
