By Paul Nicholson in Zurich
February 26 – FIFA is stumping up a massive $10 million a month for legal bills and is $550 million off its target.
Markus Kattner (pictured), the acting secretary-general and finance director speaking to FIFA’s Extraordinary Congress, said: “The commercial environment is difficult. The process for the commercialisation of rights has been delayed so we will have a negative results for the past financial year and continue to face challenges in meeting the $5 billion revenue projection for the 2015-18 cycle.
“We are $550 million behind our goals. So we need to manage costs carefully.”
Kattner talked about the need to kickstart FIFA’s commercial programme which has suffered under a stream of corruption allegations that have seen the indictments of more than 40 football executives by US Department of Justice authorities.
Kattner revealed that the crisis is costing FIFA $10m a month in legal fees and that the crisis “is affecting the morale of the FIFA team”.
“We know it is an ambitious goal for FIFA to be recognised as a modern, trusted and professional sports organisation,” he said in perhaps the biggest understatement of the day, “but we are convinced we can get there under the leadership of the new FIFA president.”
FIFA had initially budgeted for a deficit of $5 million in 2015, expecting to make up for that shortfall in the 2015-18 cycle for which it forecast a surplus of $100 million.
It is facing a shortfall of $108 million (£77.4 million) for the last financial year.
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