By Andrew Warshaw
June 12 – FIFA’s deepening crisis has taken on yet another adverse twist with the announcement that communications chief Walter De Gregorio has stepped down “with immediate effect”.
The multi-lingual Swiss-Italian De Gregorio, who has looked increasingly uncomfortable in the past fortnight as he fought to maintain FIFA’s good name and that of Sepp Blatter in the face of almost intolerable pressure, has held the position since 2011 but will now follow his boss out of world football’s governing body.
In a brief statement, FIFA said De Gregorio “has decided to relinquish his office with immediate effect as director of communications and public affairs. Mr De Gregorio will serve FIFA on a consultancy basis until the end of this year.”
Two weeks ago, just hours after the FBI-led dawn raid on the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich and the arrests of senior FIFA executives just before the FIFA Congress, De Gregorio fronted arguably his most challenging news conference, describing the events as “a good day” for football’s world governing body even though the timing “may not have been the best”
De Gregorio, popular among most journalists who had contact with him and often happy when on assignment to light up a cigarette and sit and chat well into the night about the game at large, developed a canny art of spinning developments to promote FIFA’s image – as of course his job required him to do.
At that already legendary news conference, called with just a couple of hours’ notice, De Gregoro said Blatter was feeling “relaxed” about the day’s developments because he was “not involved in them at all”, before clarifying: “Well he is not dancing in his office. He is very calm, he is fully cooperative with everything. That’s what I meant. He’s not a happy man, saying: ‘wow wow’.
“This for FIFA is good. It is not good in terms of image or reputation but in terms of cleaning up, this is good … It is not a nice day but it is also a good day. The process goes on and we are looking forward.”
Although candid and forthright, de Gregorio would always attempt to toe the party line but speculation over his resignation immediately focussed on an apparent faux pas in a Swiss television interview on Monday when he joked: “The FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, the director of communications and the general secretary are all sitting in a car – who is driving? The police.”
Responding to de Gregorio’s departure Valcke said on Thursday: “Walter has worked incredibly hard for the past four years and we are immensely grateful for all he has done. I am glad we will be able to continue to draw on his expertise until the end of the year.”
De Gregorio’s deputy, Nicolas Maingot, will take over in the interim (not for the first time) from a man with a strong journalistic background who was hired by Blatter deliberately to bring a more open, less guarded approach to communications.
He had always privately indicated that he would leave FIFA at the same time as Blatter, who will hand over to his successor whenever new elections are called, but will be a tough act to follow given the twin corruption scandals swirling round FIFA.
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