Dick Pound slams FIFA's will to reform

By David Gold

October 4 – International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Dick Pound has hit out at FIFA, saying that they lack the will to make the reforms necessary to restore faith in football.

Pound was a long-standing critic of corruption within the IOC before the Salt Lake City bidding scandal in 1998, when 10 IOC members were found to have accepted various bribes from members of the winning bid team.

After the scandal, the former Commonwealth Games gold medal winning swimmer led an inquiry into the affair and helped restore the reputation of the Olympic body.

Speaking at the opening session of the 2011 Play the Game conference in Cologne, Germany, Pound said: “FIFA has fallen far short of a credible demonstration that it recognises the many problems it faces, that it has the will to solve them…that it is willing to be transparent about what it is doing and what it finds, and that its conduct in the future will be such that the public can be confident in the governance of the sport.

“At the moment, I do not believe that such confidence exists or would be justified if it did.”

FIFA President Sepp Blatter, a colleague of Pound’s on the IOC, is under pressure to deliver convincing reforms to the way his organisation is run after a year of damaging revelations and accusations.

The bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups saw two members of FIFA’s executive committee, Amos Adamu – who today takes his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) – and Reynald Temarii, suspended after an undercover Sunday Times investigation found that they were willing to sell their votes.

The award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar then prompted further anger at FIFA, before their Presidential election in June was marred by the revelation that Blatter’s only rival, Mohamed Bin Hammam, had colluded to bribe voters in North America.

Long time FIFA vice President Jack Warner was forced to resign after an investigation into his role in the affair, whilst Bin Hammam has been kicked out of football for good, though he continues to protest his innocence.

“When I compare [the Salt Lake City] firestorm of media attention to the relatively benign, again with certain exceptions, treatment of the remarkable conduct of FIFA and certain of its executives, I am astonished,” said Pound, the former President of the World Anti-Dopng Agency.

“This is a far more serious and far more extensive problem for the world’s most popular sport than the relatively narrow conduct, improper as it was, of a few IOC members.”

At the start of the year, Blatter (pictured right) announced that he would be setting up a solutions committee, which will include the likes of former US vice President Henry Kissinger (pictured left) and opera legend Plácido Domingo, alongside football greats such as former Ajax and Barcelona star Johan Cruyff.

Having been elected for a fourth and final term as President, the 75-year-old Swiss football administrator will be presenting reforms in two weeks, which are intended to reform FIFA and restore faith in his leadership and the organisation.

At the end of August, he told Associated Press that a reform agenda would be unveiled after an executive committee meeting in Zurich on October 20 and 21.

FIFA has taken advice from Transparency International, who published a report in August that suggested their Presidents should be limited to serving two-year terms.

It also accused FIFA of being run like “an old boys’ network”, and told it to become more transparent and accountable outside of the 208 member associations it represents.

Contact the writer of this story at zib.l1734852284labto1734852284ofdlr1734852284owedi1734852284sni@d1734852284log.d1734852284ivad1734852284