By Paul Nicholson
January 15 – The number of emergency gatherings of football federation chiefs is growing with CONCACAF confirming its own Extraordinary Congress for February 25 in Zurich, the day before its members attend FIFA’s own Extraordinary event to elect a new president.
Like FIFA, the confederation for north and south America and the Caribbean will vote on a series of reforms and revisions to its statutes. Unlike FIFA CONCACAF will not be electing a new or interim president at its meeting but will open the official process towards the election in May in Mexico at the annual congress to be held before FIFA’s own Congress.
CONCACAF is currently operating without a supreme leader – its last three have either been arrested or indicted by US Justice authorities – and is currently ruled by its executive committee and its outside consultants.
In Zurich members will be asked to vote on a series of reforms that are understood to include new term rules as well as the introduction of independent directors to confederation.
While it is understood that the confederation is broadly proposing to adopt many of the same reform proposals that its members will also vote on at the FIFA Congress, there are also a specific set of proposals being put forward to member associations for CONCACAF.
Those proposals are expected to be released in the next two weeks.
CONCACAF has had its own Statutes Reform Committee working with its legal advisors “to draft amendments to CONCACAF’s statutes that will bring corporate governance best practices to the organization. The committee has also ensured that proposed revisions to FIFA’s statutes that affect CONCACAF and its Member Associations are reflected in these amendments.”
That committee was made up two members from each of the three regional bodies: Rafael Tinoco, president of UNCAF (central America) and Ruperto Vicente from Belize; Gordon Derrick president of the Caribbean Football Union and Rignaal Francisca, president of Curacao; Sunill Gulati, president of the USSF and Victor Montagliani, president of the Canadian FA. Advising the committee was lawyer Samir Gandhi from Sidley Austin. Montagliani and Gandhi were also on FIFA’s own reform committee.
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