By Andrew Warshaw in Zurich
May 11 – FIFA’s remit to improve the quality of international football before the next World Cup got off to an inauspicious and embarrassing start when the three most high-profile members of its so-called Task Force 2014 failed to show up here.
The absence of chairman and vice-chairman, Franz Beckenbauer, Pele and Sir Bobby Charlton created a massive anti-climax for the panel’s inaugural meeting.
A press conference that followed the group’s debut meeting was already overshadowed by the sensational new allegations of corruption involving six senior FIFA members.
But the no-show of the Task Force’s most high-profile figures only served to make it even more of a low-key affair.
Beckenbauer missed the meeting for health reasons, having suffered back problems which apparently forced him to be hospitalised.
Reasons for Pele’s non-appearance on the high-profile 22-member panel were less clear.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter said the Brazilian football legend had excused himself saying he had “other duties to fulfil” in Mexico.
“Pele is the king and the king has sometimes his own calendar,” Blatter said.
Blatter, who set up the Task Force after so many sterile affairs at the last World Cup in South Africa, revealed that he had tried his best to get Sir Bobby to attend.
“We tried to convince him in the last two days to make him change his mind after he said a week ago that he could not come,” said Blatter.
“But it was impossible to have him here.”
Beckenbauer, who steps down shortly as a FIFA Executive Committee member, sent a personal message regretting his enforced absence and saying the group’s establishment meant “a great deal” to him.
He is due to brief the full FIFA Congress at the end of the month.
Recommendations by the Task Force included a fourth substitution in extra time, particularly for youth competitions; clarifying the offside law and reviewing the so-called triple punishment.
Only in case of serious fouls and denying the opposing team a goalscoring opportunity should the sanction of penalty, red card and suspension still be applied, it proposed, otherwise a yellow card should suffice.
The proposal will be submitted to next year’s meeting of the International FA Board.
The grouping also agreed on the need for “concrete solutions” to help referees, ideally making them professional, but came up with no suggestions for making teams attack more and reducing so many lame draws.
Most notable of all, perhaps, but nothing to do with the Task Force’s remit, Brazil’s World Cup-winning fullback Cafu revealed plans for a special fund-raising match for victims of the double disaster in Japan featuring a combined Brazil-German team playing against a rest of the world selection.
The match is being planned for later this year, possibly in Fukushima.
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