By Andrew Warshaw
October 29 – Four of FIFA’s biggest sponsors have once again denounced the ongoing corruption scandal and say the current reform process being spearheaded by former Olympics guru Francois Carrard is too much of an inside job and needs far more independence.
Senior representatives from Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Visa and the Budweiser parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev – say they have not ruled out reconsidering their positions if their demands are not met, throwing into question the credibility of Carrard’s group that was initiated by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
The quartet, who called for Blatter to stand down this month, after criminal proceedings were opened against him, gave evidence in London on Wednesday to a group of parliamentarians and highlighted, as many neutral observers have, the fact that Carrard’s group lacks an independent voice and is made up mainly of figures with existing ties to FIFA.
Carrard is in the process of tweaking a wide-ranging set of reform proposals to be put to FIFA’s executive committee in early December, and then to the February 26 electoral congress for final approval. But the end result may not satisfy the sponsors without whom FIFA would be financially on its knees. Sponsors and commercial partners contributed $1.6 billion of FIFA’s $5.7 billion revenues in 2011-2014.
“There needs to be further work on an independent advisory board,” said Ellen Richey, Vice Chairman, Risk and Public Policy, Visa which has sponsored FIFA since 2007 and has a contract through 2022. “We have certainly informed FIFA on multiple occasions that if we are not satisfied sufficient progress has been made we will reassess our sponsorship. Transparency afforded to us and the public and fans has been inadequate.”
“What has happened recently at FIFA is utterly unacceptable and needs to change,” said Julian Hilton-Johnson, Vice-President, Corporate Relations, McDonalds. “It is unprecedented anywhere else in world sport.”
Peter Franklin, Group Director for Worldwide Sport, Coca-Cola, said his company had been associated with football for a century and would continue to push FIFA to have the highest level of governance.
“We do not believe FIFA have done what we asked them to do,” he said. “We have expressed that over and over again. We specifically called for Mr Blatter to step down so that the reform process could be seriously undertaken. We have not threatened FIFA at this point … but we do not to this day feel they done what we asked them to do. Twelve members of the reform panel are appointed by the confederations.”
“We want independent third parties to lead this process. I was managing our International Olympic Committee relationship in 1999 and 2000 when they went through similar allegations of corruption. They appointed 26 people to guide the (reform) process of whom 13 were outsiders.”
The four sponsors, who issued coordinated statements demanding Blatter’s resignation on October 2, revealed they had spoken to Adidas, which has been silent since criminal action was opened against the veteran Swiss. But they wouldn’t comment on why Adidas had failed to follow their lead.
“We come to our own decisions,” said Hilton-Johnson. “(But) clearly the more sponsors we have acting along the same lines, the more powerful the influence will be.”
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