By Andrew Warshaw
April 15 – A galaxy of footballing legends past and present, led by Pele and Franz Beckenbauer (pictured), meet next month to start to find ways of improving the game as a result of some of the sterile encounters at last year’s World Cup.
Beckenbauer, who has been appointed as the chairman, and Pele, the German’s deputy, lead a FIFA-appointed think tank charged with coming up with ideas to make international football a better spectacle ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
The 22-member so-called Task Force Football 2014 will also include World Cup winners Sir Bobby Charlton, Cafu and Christian Karembeu.
Other former players include former AC Milan team-mates Demetrio Albertini and Dejan Savicevic, Fernando Hierro and Zambia’s Kalusha Bwalya.
Also on the list is Swiss referee Massimo Busacca and officials from three countries who lost out in the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups: United States federation leader Sunil Gulati, England Football Association general secretary Alex Horne and Japan’s Kohzo Tashima.
The panel will first convene on May 10 at FIFA headquarters in Zurich where they will start the process of recommending ways to make the game more attractive – changing the points system for draws is one option – and also cover match control and fair play.
A first report will then be made to the FIFA Congress in Zurich on June 1 when FIFA President Sepp Blatter takes on Mohamed Bin Hammam for the top job in football.
“This vastly experienced team will address every facet of the game, tackling any challenges related to the game and coming up with appropriate solutions,” said Blatter.
Beckenbauer, who steps down as a FIFA Executive Committee member at the Congress, gave a broad outline of the kind of areas the new Task Force would address.
“Important matters such as goal-line technology, additional referees, the so-called ‘triple-punishment’, behaviour on and off the field, as well as various other topics still need to be discussed and positively resolved,” he said.
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