December 1 – Wolfgang Niersbach, the German FA president who is being touted as a future president of UEFA or FIFA, has called for a deadline to be placed on 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar to prove it is making progress with reforming its workers’ rights policy.
Niersbach is expected to replace Theo Zwanziger next May as Germany’s representative on the FIFA executive committee (a formal change should be rubber-stamped at the UEFA congress in March) and made his comments in an interview with Der Spiegel, suggesting the end of 2015 as an appropriate time for Qatar to put its house in order.
“From the perspective of the DFB it would be in the interest of the Qatar issue to define a period at the end of which independent bodies such as Amnesty International and the International Trade Union Confederation could make a final assessment of the conditions for construction workers,” said Niersbach.
He is expected to make a formal proposal to that effect when he takes over from Zwanziger who has been officially monitoring the situation in Qatar on behalf of FIFA, reporting back to the exco.
” I want to stand up for the European positions and the firm belief that German football must maintain its voice in key decision-making bodies,” said Niersbach.
In another interview, this time with Frankfurter Allgemeine, Niersback intriguingly left the door open for a possible European challenge to Sepp Blatter’s presidency at next year’s elections.
UEFA is widely expected to put its collective support behind a candidate from another confederation now that Michel Platini has ruled himself out. January 29 is the deadline and Niersbach said: .”I do not rule out that …. there will be a European candidate. This possible option is currently being discussed inside UEFA.”
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