BERN, Switzerland — A 12-member committee set up by FIFA to draw up far-reaching reforms to the organization in the wake of a corruption scandal met for the first time here Wednesday. Headed by Swiss lawyer Francois Carrard, the committee will first hear from Domenico Scala, who is chairman of FIFA's Audit and Compliance Committee, according to an informed source.
No agenda details were released.
Carrard, 77, was appointed by FIFA on Aug. 11 to lead the Reform Committee after the corruption scandal erupted in May, when seven football officials were arrested at a Zurich hotel on the eve of a FIFA Congress.
The seven FIFA officials were among 14 people facing charges in the United States over more than $150 million (137.87 million euros) of bribes for marketing and broadcasting contracts.
In parallel, Swiss investigators are looking into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter was re-elected for a fifth term at the Zurich congress but, under pressure from the arrests, he suddenly announced he would stand down next February when a new election for his post would be held.
Subsequently he announced that a reform committee taskforce would be set up to draw up a list of changes.
Blatter denies any wrong-doing and Carrard has gone on record as saying that there was not a shred of evidence against his fellow Swiss.
Carrard, who previously was in charge of implementing reforms at the International Olympic Committee in the wake of the bribery scandal-hit Winter Olympics of 2002, is due to present his reform proposals to a FIFA congress meeting on Feb. 26, when Blatter will officially stand down. The Reform Committee, which will sit for two days, comprises two officials from each of the six FIFA confederations.
This means that the regional soccer confederations, which currently control FIFA's troubled executive committee, also dominate the reform committee. Most of the soccer officials indicted had been officials in the confederations for North and South America.
“It's hard to take seriously a reform committee of FIFA that is full of football and Olympic insiders and officials, all of whom have an implicit conflict of interest through their roles as well as a vested interest in maintaining as much of the status quo as they can get away with,” said Jaimie Fuller, a founder of the campaign group #NewFIFANow, which is seeking radical reform.
An attempt to get FIFA's sponsors - such as Coca Cola Co., Visa Inc. and McDonald's Corp. - to appoint two representatives to the committee failed.
The sponsors decided they didn't want to be part of a body so dominated by the confederations, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Coca-Cola, Visa and McDonald's all declined to discuss the latest developments in the FIFA reform process when contacted by Reuters. Visa and McDonald's both referred to statements they had issued some time ago in which they called for reforms in FIFA.
Andrew Woodward, former director of public relations for Visa's Global and USA Marketing, said he believes the sponsors made a mistake by pushing demands for FIFA reform.
“They are paying for the right to sponsor a particular event ... they aren't buying a share in the business,” he said.
Many of those inside or close to FIFA are also suffering from reform plan fatigue. There have been many reform initiatives in the past and most have led to little real change.
Indeed, FIFA already had a reform process in place when the committee was appointed. That process is led by Domenico Scala, independent head of FIFA's audit and compliance committee. — Agencies
