December 5 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is to set up a permanent whistleblower function as part of a new integrity policy catchlined ‘Do the right thing’.The initiative will see the AFC take a significant lead in the battle against match-fixing in a period when some other confederations have taken a deliberate step back from funding their efforts in this area.
Last month the AFC showed its intention in this area, moving swiftly to ban four players from Laos in competition at the AFC Solidarity Cup in Malaysia. The new policy further strengthens the AFC’s zero tolerance position and provides a platform for whistleblowers to come forward in confidence and anonymously.
“This is an important proposal from the AFC Governance Reform Task Force and now we need to appoint an Independent Head of Integrity”, AFC president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa said.
“The Administration will write to all Member Associations and also undertake a headhunting process to recommend to the ExCo the most suitable candidate, who will then be approved at the next Congress.”
The integrity policy document was shared in draft format with other confederations and ‘integrity’ stakeholders with universal approval.
One comment being that “it will certainly become a benchmark reference to tackle the problem.”
Full details of the proposed policy have not been publicly released, though the first step is to recruit a full time person to implement the strategy.
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