By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
April 23 – Just weeks after complaining that anti-corruption proposals to clean up FIFA had deliberately been “neutered”, one of the reform process’s key advisers has quit in protest.
In a recent interview, Wrage said she was “frustrated and surprised” that FIFA had watered down several IGC suggestions for reform including independent integrity checks for future senior officials and independent observers at all FIFA executive committee meetings.
The ICG is headed by Swiss law professor Mark Pieth but his position has been seriously undermined when he was described “just a counsellor” by Theo Zwanziger the former German FA federation president now leading the reform process into its final stages ahead of next month’s FIFA Congress in Mauritius.
Wrage appeared to speak for several of her colleagues when she told Bloomberg: “It’s been the least productive project I’ve ever been involved in . . . [In Mauritius] I’d have just been lying on the beach. None of our items made it on to the agenda.
“The strangest thing is that people forget this was FIFA’s idea. They could have done nothing. They weathered lots of scandals before, so why do it and work to undermine the effort? I suppose they thought they were going to get easy good optics without fundamental change.”
She had found FIFA “byzantine and impenetrable” and her experience as “more baffling than frustrating”.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter set the reform process under way in June 2011 following a series of scandals that had rocked world football’s governing body.
With a three-quarters majority needed its forthcoming Congress, there is widespread belief that the reform package – even in diluted form – may not pass.
Wrage, Canadian president of TRACE International, which specialises in anti-bribery compliance, said there was simply no point in her carrying on.
“It was an interesting process with a committed team but the FIFA response to the governance recommendations was fairly breathtaking frankly,” she said.
“There were certainly some things accomplished in the first year – the split in investigative and adjudicatory bodies (on the Ethics Committee), those sorts of things are progress.
“Where you lose the public’s attention on the kind of nitty gritty compliance issues that are incredibly important structurally, to make sure there are systemic safeguards in place going forward, those were rejected.”
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734829639labto1734829639ofdlr1734829639oweis1734829639ni@wa1734829639hsraw1734829639.werd1734829639na1734829639