By Andrew Warshaw
July 28 – The much-anticipated Reform Task Force set up by FIFA in response to its burgeoning corruption crisis appears to have hit a potentially serious snag after Domenico Scala (pictured), favourite to land the job as the body’s chairman, said he would not take it on unless he was guaranteed full independence.
Front-line World Cup sponsors have made clear in no uncertain terms that they want someone from outside football to head the 11-member panel.
Scala, whilst theoretically independent himself, already chairs FIFA’s audit and compliance committee as well as being responsible for the electoral process to replace Sepp Blatter as president. There is also a feeling the Task Force chairman should not be from Europe.
UEFA president Michel Platini and his counterparts in Asia and CONCACAF are understood to have asked Scala to do the job. But the Swiss-Italian is believed by some to be too close to Blatter, having been the official who put forward specific detailed reform proposals to FIFA’s executive committee last week.
The decision on the task force chairman is to be taken by the six confederation presidents and also, reportedly, Blatter too. Time is tight since the panel has been mandated to report to the next exco meeting at the end of September.
FIFA confirmed at the weekend that the reform task force “should be chaired by an independent person from outside of the world of football” and a spokesman for Scala said he would consider the post only “under the strict condition” that independence was guaranteed.
Another thorny question is whether the composition of the 10 other panelists will serve the Task Force’s purpose in overseeing meaningful reform. All members have to come from FIFA’s six confederations – two from the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean) and UEFA (Europe), and one from Conmebol (South America) and the OFC (Oceania).
To allay fears of vested interests, FIFA have now clarified that the confederations can choose anyone from outside the game. In a statement, FIFA said representatives would not necessarily have to be “members of the football community” and the confederations could decide that themselves.
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