La Paz (Bolivia), June 4 (IANS): Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed several football legends, including Diego Maradona, as potential candidates to lead world football's governing body FIFA.

Any new FIFA chief should emerge from among football legends Portugal's Luis Figo, Frenchman Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane, or Argentina's Maradona, Morales said on Wednesday, reports Xinhua.

The current president of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), Joseph Blatter announced on Tuesday he will be stepping down in the wake of bribery scandals that have led to the arrest so far of seven high-level former and active officials.

"The new leaders must be footballers, former World Cup winners," Morales said here.

Morales has also called on the head of the Bolivian Football Federation (FBF), Carlos Chavez, to resign.

"Carlos Chavez should resign for the good of football. It is the obligation, the enormous responsibility of athletes to transform the structure of football," he said.

Chavez is being investigated in Bolivia for allegedly accepting a bribe of $1.5 to $7.5 million. He has denied any wrongdoing.