Measures announced today by FIFA fall far short of what is required to clean out corruption at FIFA and its associations.
Instead of agreeing to a serious independent reform commission, FIFA today announced yet another task force made up of 10 FIFA confederation members and one independent chair who has not yet been named. This will not be sufficient to win back trust in FIFA.
So far nine current and former officials face corruption charges in the United States. A judge has called FIFA a racketeering-influenced corrupt organisation. Those charged include officials on the highest FIFA committees and responsible for FIFA’s governance and compliance.
There are on-going investigations into the awarding of the World Cup in 2018 and 2022, and the Swiss authorities are investigating 81 suspicious activities involving FIFA.
Transparency International said that without a real independent reform commission there can be no confidence that FIFA can end its corruption crisis.
“FIFA is a rotten democracy where votes can be bought, bribes can be made and money can be laundered. It has promised reform many times before and failed dismally. They have failed fans and supporters today,” said Neil Martinson, Transparency International’s Director of Communications.
Transparency International with the #NewFIFANow campaign and the International Trade Union Confederation will continue to put pressure on the sponsors to ensure FIFA makes the kind of root and branch reforms that will lead to a new culture of integrity.
Transparency International says that to clean up FIFA has to:
- appoint independent non-executives to the Executive Committee, changing the President is not enough
- conduct independent integrity checks. FIFA announced it would introduce in-house integrity checks as part of the Ethics Committee remit
- complete public declarations of interests; publication of salaries is not enough
- two terms limited to four years and no more
- complete financial transparency for FIFA, the regional confederations and the national football associations
Sepp Blatter was in charge when most of the corruption took place over many years. He should step down immediately. Potential candidates to replace him must accept that without an independent reform commission there will be no confidence or trust in FIFA.