By Andrew Warshaw in Manama, Bahrain
May 11 – The Greek official controversially selected by FIFA to become the new lead judge of its ethics committee was nominated by UEFA in the latest twist to the biggest story to emerge in the build-up to Thursday’s 211-member Congress.
Insideworldfootball has learned that Vassilios Skouris, who was president of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg for 12 years until 2015, was one of the names put forward by UEFA to be considered for a position in FIFA’s new governance structure – but not to replace Hans-Joachim Eckert as head of the ethics committee’s adjudicatory chamber.
As the fallout from the Gianni Infantino-orchestrated purge of Eckert, chief investigator Cornel Borbely, governance guru Miguel Maduro and other key officials deepens, Infantino is apparently adopting the narrative that Skouris was Europe’s preferred choice to replace Eckert.
This has irritated the UEFA hierarchy who admit that Skouris was one of the names they proposed for consideration, but that they never once specifically suggested he be given the top job in the ethics apparatus which they say was entirely the FIFA Council’s decision on the recommendation of Infantino.
What UEFA’s nomination does prove, however, is that they, like every other confederation, were asked by FIFA to provide a list of names for new judicial positions, fuelling speculation that a plan to get rid of Eckert and Borbely – who will be replaced by little-known Colombian lawyer Maria Claudia Rojas – was hatched in principle some time ago even though the pair were not informed by the FIFA administration that they would be jettisoned once their mandates expire at Thursday’s Congress.
This lack of openness certainly concerned Germany’s new FIFA Council member and FA president Reinhard Grindel who made it clear, despite FIFA’s attempts at putting on a unified front, that there was a split in the Council over replacing Borbely and Eckert.
“I said in the (Council) meeting (on Tuesday) that we were satisfied with the work of both people,” said Grindel, who added that he had checked with FIFA general secretary Fatma Samoura’s office to see if anything was being planned against the Ethics Committee heads.
“I asked the day before if there were any announcements that Borbely and Eckert will be displaced and they said no, they had no information.”
Grindel had no doubt who was behind the decision.
“You have to ask Infantino why he made this proposal. It is a decision of the president. There was no open decision.”
But just to emphasise the split among Council members, CONCACAF president Victor Montagliano said he had no problem about the changing of the governance guard and rejected the notion put forward by Borbely and Eckert that FIFA had sabotaged the entire ethics process.
“With all due respect to their opinions I don’t believe that at all,” Montagliani told the BBC. “… Yes, the ethics committees are very important but it’s not like we replaced them with non-independent people.”
“It’s been way overblown from a hype perspective. Maybe it’s my Canadian background, I’m a little uncomfortable when judges start speaking in the media, either during their tenureship or even after their tenureship. I think that is quite unprofessional, quite frankly.”
“I think they’ve done yeoman’s work in terms of what they’ve done, a lot of hard work. I take my hat off to them but I think it’s time to give someone else an opportunity who, from what I’ve seen, are of the highest standard. “
So not politically motivated, then, as Borbely had intimated at a news conference in Bahrain on Wednesday?
“No, absolutely not,” replied Montagliano. “Whether it was done this year or the year after it’s the right of the organisation to do that. That question in itself, that we think it’s politically motivated, maybe goes to the fact that people who sit in those chairs need to be less political. I know it’s difficult at times, especially with the spotlight that’s been put on these cases over the last two or three years because of the high profile nature of it. I get it. But at some point the work needs to be done in a very humble way.”
Yet that didn’t stop U.S. law professor Joseph Weiler, in a letter to Samoura, from resigning his position on the FIFA governance committee in protest at the removal of Maduro who, some reports suggested, was axed for blocking Russian World Cup chief and deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko’s re-election to the FIFA Council because of a conflict of interest, a highly embarrassing ruling for Infantino with the finals only a year away.
Not for the first time, the build-up to the FIFA Congress could end up being far more newsworthy than the summit itself. So could the press conference that follows Thursday’s agenda since Infantino has promised to give his side of the story in the ethics saga.
As for the meeting itself, most of the contentious items have been removed including the impasse between Israel and Palestine after FIFA claimed, despite years of unresolved talks, it would be “premature” for the members to “take any decision” though it remains to be seen whether the Palestinian Football Association attempts to force through a vote at the last minute.
South African Tokyo Sexwale, whose mandate as head of the Israel-Palestine Monitoring Committee comes to an end at the Congress, had originally come up with three potential options including giving Israel six months to suspend six lower-league teams playing in the occupied territories, a situation that has caused deep divisions on both sides.
Also off the agenda are highly controversial statute changes that would have handed more power to the six Confederation presidents. The decision not to proceed with this could be construed as a blow to Infantino’s hopes of cementing his power base at the top of the organisation despite what critics say is a quest for complete authority.
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