By Andrew Warshaw
March 19 – A key meeting of FIFA’s executive committee (exco) opens on Thursday with the latest on Brazil’s troubled World Cup preparations high on the agenda along with the thorny issues of Israeli-Palestine relations and workers’ rights in Qatar.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter is due to give his members an update on how much progress, if any, is being made to allow Palestinian players more freedom of movement in the region and the state of play in terms of Israel’s co-operation.
The Palestine FA has threatened to call for Israel to be expelled from football’s world governing body at this summer’s FIFA Congress unless there is tangible evidence that its players and officials are being allowed to travel without restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza.
Ongoing FIFA reforms, including the contentious issue of term and age limits for the FIFA president and ExCo members, is also up for discussion.
Germany’s Theo Zwanziger, the exco member charged with monitoring the situation in 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar, is to present recommendations to FIFA after speaking with a number of human rights organisations, trade unions and the European Parliament.
“I think we all agree that the situation of the migrant workers is a complex matter, and we cannot expect things to change overnight,” said Zwanziger ahead of the two-day meeting in Zurich. “But we need to work together in an intensive approach in order to support the work currently being done by the competent authorities in Qatar.”
Although not officially on the agenda, it is understood that exco members will also be asked to approve the idea of merging the positions of confederation president with FIFA vice-president, roles which in some confederations are currently split and which the majority of Asian countries, for instance, want to stay that way in their particular region.
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