By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent, in Mauritius
May 31 – FIFA’s much-trumpeted reform measures, designed to improve the battered image of world football’s governing body and herald in a new era of transparency, were approved by a landslide majority of members today – but not before Mark Pieth, the governance advisor charged with drawing up the original proposals, caused a huge stir by challenging Sepp Blatter and his colleagues to reveal their salaries.
Remuneration for senior officials has consistently been a touchy issue and one which Pieth’s International Governance Committee had in vain pressed FIFA to throw into the statute-changing reform package which comes into effect immediately.
The outspoken Pieth, while acknowledging FIFA had gone some way to enhance its reputation by introducing measures such as a more powerful ethics committee, integrity checks, more women in senior positions and future World Cup hosts being decided by FIFA’s entire membership, nevertheless pulled no punches as he seized his moment to downgrade what Blatter had described earlier as an historic moment.
Throwing down the gauntlet to FIFA’s top brass to show total rather than partial transparency, Pieth said: “A key remaining issue in transparency is the remuneration of key officials. Here FIFA needs to catch up. I would like to invite the president and members of the executive committee to take this step as it would send a crucial message … to the wider public that they have nothing to hide.”
The Swiss professor also described as “unfortunate” the decision to defer a decision on age and term limits for another year. “These may not be the most fundamental of reform issues but they send a symbolic message,” said Pieth.
“Overall a lot has been achieved [but] this last point illustrates that the reform process is not finished. It is unfortunate that some of the most essential reforms have been pushed aside for political reasons.”
“The major challenge for FIFA is to achieve a change of culture. Frankly, let’s not expect miracles immediately. This cannot happen from one day to the next. It will take time. We are at the beginning rather than at the end of this process. We need a clear commitment by the senior officials that they really want to go down the road of reform.”
A clearly embarrassed Blatter said he wished he had invited Pieth to speak after, rather than before, the vote to support the reform package – 198 in favour, two against with seven abstentions. One FIFA delegation did not show up at Congress and another was not eligible to vote.
If Pieth’s intervention was unexpectedly strong-worded, a separate ballot on the prickly decision to put off age and term limits for senior FIFA administrators until 2014 because no consensus recommendation could be drawn up in time achieved the expected reaction.
In the days leading up to the FIFA Congress here, UEFA president Michel Platini criticised FIFA’s inability to act on age and term limits, suggesting the inertia of the executive committee represented a total lack of collective will.
As expected Platini’s entire confederation, which has suggested two terms for President and an upper age limit of 72 for executive committee members, abstained when the motion to put off the decision was put to the vote and was approved by a 123-16 margin, with 68 abstentions.
In an atmosphere of restrained discord, several countries rose to speak, some in favour of postponement, others against. German FA President Wolfgang Niersbach, like his Danish colleague, said there was a principle at stake.
“We understand that the reform is on the right track and that the highest standards are being sought after,” said Niersbach. “But it is regrettable that before this congress it was not possible to come up with a proposal as to mandates and age limits. For the public at large, this would have been a good signal to send out, a much stronger signal for the image of FIFA. I wish we could have reached agreement today.”
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