By Andrew Warshaw
September 4 – Anyone who thought the eagerly anticipated first meeting of FIFA’s much-trumpeted Reform body would result in ground-breaking advances will be disappointed but its leader insists “important steps” have been taken in the way world football’s governing body is run.
The two-day, closed-door session was intended to set Fifa on the right track towards cleaning itself up in the wake of the twin American and Swiss criminal investigations into widespread corruption that has already snared several senior football officials.
The first task of the 12-member body was to come up with an interim report to present to the Fifa executive committee meeting on Sept. 24-25. But former Olympics guru Francois Carrard, who FIFA picked last month to lead the process, admitted nothing concrete had yet been achieved. “We are not yet at the stage of the proposals,” Carrard told reporters after the meeting in Bern.
Specific ideas will not now be discussed until his group returns to the Swiss capital on Oct. 16-18.
The fact that Carrard’s team comprises officials from FIFA’s six continental confederations has raised questions over whether deep-rooted change can actually be achieved. Carrard himself has drawn criticism with comments about the status of the sport in the United States in a Swiss newspaper interview last month. He said then he “struggled to understand” why US Attorney General Loretta Lynch held a news conference in May about widespread racketeering and money laundering when soccer was “just an ethnic sport for girls in schools.”
“I should speak less,” Carrard responded after this week’s inaugural reform meeting, nevertheless adding that he was surprised at the “harshness of the action which was taken in Zurich” in May when seven officials, including two FIFA vice presidents suspected of taking bribes, were arrested in dawn raids at their hotel just before the FIFA congress that re-elected Sepp Blatter. The veteran Swiss has since decided to step down but wants a full reform programme to be voted in when he does.
Proposals include term limits for senior FIFA officials, salary disclosure and integrity checks , all blocked so far but now back on the agenda.
“We are not at the stage of the proposals, we have covered, studied, reviewed and exchanged opinions on all areas,” said Carrard. “The specific proposals will be on the table at the next meeting which will be in October (but) we have made important steps towards delivering meaningful and lasting reform.”
Part of the meeting was taken up taken up with a presentation by Domenico Scala, the independent chairman of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee who wants to weaken the power of the executive committee.
Carrard played down suggestions that the make-up of his group was flawed in terms of bringing about consensus because of vested interests. “I had no feeling of any fight at all,” he said. “The members of the committee have, without exception, discussed every area in the most open and constructive way. We had some fabulous input, very independent. There is a deep perception of the seriousness of the situation.”