By Andrew Warshaw
October 21- FIFA’s unprecedented corruption crisis is set to get a whole lot worse when its independent Ethics Committee lifts the veil of secrecy on a list of further officials who are under investigation but could not previously be named.
While the decision to stick with a February presidential election might have made most of the headlines following the emergency executive committee meeting in Zurich, of far more significance was scrapping confidentiality rules that will now allow ethics investigators freedom to reveal the identities of anyone currently facing sanctions, not least with regard to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process.
Until now ethics investigator Cornel Borbely and ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert could only announce their verdicts at the end of their inquiries but no time will be wasted to take advantage of their new freedoms. A statement said an announcement will be made Wednesday afternoon once those under investigation have been notified, adding a heightened sense of expectation and intrigue to the crisis bedevilling FIFA.
The landmark decision is the clearest sign yet of much-needed transparency since the corruption scandal unfolded. “In future, it will be possible to confirm the opening of proceedings against leading representatives of world football on request,” said an ethics committee statement.
Insideworldfootball understands that the move was approved by a majority of exco members yet was not unanimous.
Arguably the most vulnerable powerbroker is FIFA vice-president Angel Maria Villar, who has long been rumoured to be under investigation but never publicly named. The long-serving Spanish FA boss is de facto acting UEFA president following Michel Platini’s provisional suspension and on Tuesday, with supreme irony, replaced the UEFA president as acting chairman of the 2018 World Cup organizing committee.
Meanwhile, Kuwaiti powerbroker Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah told The Associated Press that confidential talks had taken place about how to proceed if Platini clears his name in time to run for FIFA president. Before he was suspended by the ethics committee for 90 days, Platini’s supporters apparently believed the Frenchman could count on the votes of more than half of the 209 FIFA federations, mostly from Europe, Asia and South America.
But now, said Sheikh Ahmad, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, the Asian Football Confederation president from Bahrain, should enter the race as part of an agreement with UEFA. “He will start with the same big number of potential support,” Sheikh Ahmad said. “I think there will be more than three continents.”
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