By Andrew Warshaw
January 2 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter has revealed he wants to set up an anti-corruption unit to weed out football’s worst practices.
The move comes after arguably the most contentious year in Blatter’s Presidency highlighted by allegations of sleaze that dogged the entire bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and heaped embarrassment on football’s world governing body.
Blatter, up for re-election in the summer, was reported as telling the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeiting that the independent committee would comprise seven to nine members “not only from sport but from politics, finance, business and culture”.
It would, he said, “strengthen our credibility and give us a new image in terms of transparency.
“I will take care of it personally, to ensure there is no corruption at FIFA.”
Blatter said he would not be a member of the committee whose role would appear, on paper, to be surprisingly similar to that of FIFA’s Ethics Committee.
It was their investigation into alleged World Cup voting irregularities, following a damning expose in the Sunday Times newspaper, that led to the suspensions of executive committee members Amos Adamu, of Nigeria, and Reynald Temarii of Tahiti.
Both subsequently missed the December ballot in which Russia was chosen to host the 2018 tournament and Qatar 2022 following a secret vote by the remaining 22 committee members.
During the bidding process, FIFA was also forced to investigate rumours of collusion between Qatar and 2018 candidates Spain/Portugal.
Both contenders were cleared of any wrongdoing but suspicions of vote-trading collusion persist.
To add insult to injury, a BBC Panorama programme three days before the World Cup vote alleged three FIFA officials, Nicolas Leoz, Issa Hayatou and Ricardo Teixeira, took bribes in the 1990s.
Blatter, 74, is up for an unprecedented fourth term as FIFA president on June 1.
Although he currently is standing alone, the latest move will be seen by many as a well-timed charm offensive to court popularity and stave off any prospective challengers ahead of the individual confederation congresses that take place in the first half of 2011, starting with the Asian Confederation Congress on January 6 in Qatar.
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