By Andrew Warshaw
September 27 – FIFA’s two former ethics chiefs, sacked last May during a purge of senior governance watchdogs, have made a strong appeal before the Council of Europe for the organisation’s supervisory bodies to be “totally independent” of its executive.
Cornel Borbely and Hans-Joachim Eckert, , who chaired the investigatory and adjudicatory chambers of FIFA’s Ethics Committee respectively until they were unexpectedly replaced by FIFA’s ruling Council, told a closed Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) session in Paris that their investigative work could only be done properly without internal interference or pressure.
The work of Borbely and Eckert brought down a string of corrupt officials, only for FIFA to decide not to renew their mandates. Their appearance before PACE last Friday had been eagerly anticipated but despite being in the public interest, the session was closed to the media.
A flavour of the discussions was instead included in a PACE statement which quoted Borbely as telling delegates: “I believe the FIFA ethics code is now a good one – but if it is to be effective, the choice of who enforces it must be made with absolute transparency.”
Eckert is reported to have told the Assembly: “You can have the best possible ethics framework on paper – but success ultimately depends on the quality of the people who are applying it, and their ability to work entirely independently.”
A full report on good governance in football, including some of the testimony provided by Eckert and Borbely, is due to be released in December by PACE president Anne Brasseur and should make for interesting reading.
Miguel Maduro, former head of FFA’s governance apparatus who was also contentiously replaced in May, had been due to speak in Paris too but had to cancel at the last minute.
No reason was given but Maduro’s damning testimony before a group of British parliamentarians earlier this month plunged the FIFA leadership into fresh embarrassment over its attitude to the whole question of governance.
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