By Andrew Warshaw
October 22 – Sepp Blatter’s radical new proposals for weeding out corruption have been given a cautious welcome by the Transparency International, the pressure group that has been advising FIFA.
As football takes stock as to how effective the two-year road map to reform announced in Zurich yesterday will be, Transparancy International’s senior adviser for sport Sylvia Schenk said there was no going back and that FIFA could not afford to renege on its plans for a total overhaul.
“I think it was a very good result, but it is a first step,” Schenk said after Blatter announced that the infamous ISL case involving alleged bribery by key FIFA powerbrokers would be re-opened and that three new bodies would be set up to monitor the organisation’s conduct.
“It’s a starting point.
“After today they can’t go back.
“It will be a catastrophe if they go back.”
Schenk, whose organisation was taken on board by FIFA as advisers after releasing a critical report this summer, said it would be unrealistic to expect instant results, however.
“They have forced themselves to take the next steps.
“[But] it takes time to change the structure step by step and then change the culture within.
“It’s quite an ambitious road map that was presented.”
Schenk said it was important for all the cases of corruption in the past to to be investigated.
“From our point of view is very important to settle the issues of the past and investigate the most public allegations,” she said.
“This means there will have to be investigation of Executive Committee members and their administration of FIFA and FIFA funding.”
Blatter said yesterday that after new reforms, FIFA would “present an image that is slightly better than the one we have currently”.
In the past 12 months four FIFA Executive Committee members have either been banned or resigned, with over a third of the Committee tarnished in some shape or form.
Blatter has set a final date of the 2013 FIFA congress in Mauritius for the reforms to bite.
He denied that the process would take too long.
“We cannot move too fast, we have to go step by step,” he said.
“I think we have been ambitious in our road map, it is a bit of a Formula One model, but by 2013 I think we will be able to live up to the promises we have made.”
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