By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 19 – The head of Brazilian football has refused to criticise his disgraced predecessor whose tarnished reputation was once again highlighted at a media briefing today. Jose Maria Marin (pictured) told reporters he could not answer for the conduct of the man he replaced, Ricardo Teixeira.
Last year, following damning findings by FIFA’s ethics committee, Joao Havelange, who controlled FIFA for 24 years, resigned as honorary president after being officially denounced for having taken bribes. Teixeira, his son-in-law, relinquished all his footballing roles – including head of the Brazilian FA and a prominent FIFA executive committee position – and fled Brazil after both men were accused of illicitly receiving millions of dollars in the infamous ISL affair.
But Marin refused to be drawn into Teixera’s past when quizzed at FIFA’s daily media briefing in Rio de Janeiro.
Marin, who had been Teixeira’s number two, told reporters: “In my humble opinion I think never, in my life, (have I) made comments about another citizen. It’s not up to me to judge anyone and I wouldn’t do that now.
“In terms of his office Ricardo Teixeira was a winner. He attained titles for Brazil and I analyse his behaviour only as someone who has been a manager in the world of football.”
At the same briefing, FIFA’s director of member associations and development, Thierry Regenass, said the organisation was now far more vigilant when it came to monitoring how member federations spend their hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money.
Renegass denied a suggestion that South African officials has spent part of their 2010 World Cup legacy fund on Mercedes cars but admitted that in the past, FIFA’s development programme “might not have functioned the way it should have”, not least in the Caribbean which was constantly the subject of corruption allegations under the leadership of former FIFA powerbroker Jack Warner.
“We now have a proper mechanism to carry out projects so they will succeed,” Renegass told reporters. “We cannot guarantee total success when working in 209 countries…in the Caribbean some projects were not implemented properly. But now we have more experience .. to make sure these kinds of problems do not happen in the future.”
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