By Andrew Warshaw
October 19 – As FIFA’s executive committee prepares to meet in emergency session to consider the fallout from Sepp Blatter’s 90-day suspension, its Australian member Moya Dodd says cleaning up the organisation after the worst corruption crisis in sporting history is far more important than whoever takes over as president.
With general secretary Jerome Valcke and UEFA boss Michel Platini also suspended by FIFA’s ethics committee and world football’s governing body in meltdown, Dodd has spoken out over the need for robust, concrete reform in order to save the credibility of the organisation.
Tuesday’s meeting will be presented with an update from the reform committee being led by former Olympic guru Francois Carrard, with the final exco of the year on December 2 – 3 slated as the date for recommending, or otherwise, which ideas to put forward to the emergency congress next February 26 that will choose a successor to Blatter.
Questioned by BBC radio on FIFA’s current predicament, Dodd declined on several occasions to fall into the trap of discussing individual cases but conceded the FIFA brand had “certainly been damaged.”
“Now the most important priority is reform. It’s more important than the elections that people seem most keen to talk about,” she said.
“FIFA has no choice but to reform; the scale of what we’ve seen emerge and are facing is unprecedented. Reform needs to go ahead urgently and it’s important to establish a new and settled leadership and important that it is done as soon as possible.”
A co-opted representative on the exco, Dodd identified those reforms she said were crucial to bring about harmony and transparency.
“There are a lot of good reform ideas out on the table including proposals around enhanced integrity checks, term limits, the way the elections are conducted, how to improve standards of governance thoughout the football pyramid including down through the confederations and member associations.
“There are ideas about having independent directors in the executive committee who are not representative of any particular stakeholder group and another set of ideas close to my heart about improving the gender balance of football.”
Getting more women into positions of prominence within FIFA has become almost a vocation for Dodd, who says it might even reduce corruption.
“We’re still an overwhelmingly male world in football. If you look at congress there are less than one per cent women who vote.
“Organisations with better gender balance make better decisions. Studies even show less corruption when you have better gender balance in the management team. So that’s an area where governance could be improved with better gender balance.”
She dismisses calls in some quarters to disband FIFA altogether.
“It’s very important for football to have a strong centre global body. Football needs a FIFA and it’s important for FIFA to be resilient and exercise its functions capably and well in all parts of the world.
“Look at the impact of solidarity among the football nations and see what that has done: African football has progressed remarkably in the last couple of decades with so many players in top leagues and the national teams real competototpors. In women’s football you’ve got Asia and North America who have been to the last two Women’s World Cup finals and the last Olympic final.
“These things are a result of the positive development work which gets done around the world and that can only occur because there is a FIFA that holds a World Cup and generates enough money to spend half a million dollars a day on development. Clearly there are some issues with how that has been spent but …football needs a strong central body.”
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