Jean Francois Tanda Archives - Inside World Football

Jean Francois Tanda: European court decision is for the Good of the Game

Football belongs to everyone. That’s basically the outcome of the recent decision by the European Court of Justice that ruled against the two football governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA. Formalistically, the case was about Belgium and the UK. Both countries had decided to declare football World Cups and European championships as ‘events of major importance’ and as such have to be broadcast on free TV channels. FIFA and UEFA both tried to avoid this decision,

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Jean Francois Tanda: “The world has gone mad, football is even crazier”

In European football, off-season is high season for football agents trying to sell their players to clubs for loads of money. So far, this year’s high season has been a successful one. Falcao left Atlético Madrid for €60 million to join new French First League Club Monaco. Neymar left his home country Brazil to continue his career with Barcelona. The Catalans paid €57 million. In the last few days, Paris St-Germain confirmed the transfer of Uruguay’s international player Edinson Cavani from Naples.

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Jean Francois Tanda: Pieth cuts an unconvincing TV figure

Guido Tognoni is a former high ranked FIFA manager. Today, he is a leading critic of Sepp Blatter and FIFA’s Executive Committee. Mark Pieth called him a “former poodle” of Blatter and “a commodity trader” with no moral right to criticise him.

Canadian governance expert and lawyer, Alexandra Wrage, once was a member of FIFA’s Internal Governance Committee (IGC). She left the group, basically saying it was a waste of time to work for FIFA as the football governing body refused to implement serious steps for a change.

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Jean Francois Tanda: Swiss are taking anti-corruption reforms into their own hands

Deutsche fassung

Today, in Switzerland, corruption is only a crime when it involves state employees or – in the private sector – when it occurs in a competitive environment. This will change soon.

Last week, the Swiss government published a proposal to tighten their corruption law. Even though, officially, it does not target FIFA, it is clear that the new law is nothing else than a Lex FIFA.

Since 2006,

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Jean Francois Tanda: Could FIFA Museum already be a thing of the past?

FIFA’s media office sent the invitation to media representatives twice. Obviously, the international football federation wanted to make sure that numerous journalists attend the event. On Twitter, FIFA President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter announced a “hugely exciting major project”. Only a few minutes later, he revealed he was talking about the FIFA Museum in Zurich.

The campaign worked well, and in front of numerous cameras and microphones Blatter could tell many journalists about his dream and his gift to the “sports city Zurich”.

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Jean Francois Tanda: Brothers in Arms

While FIFA is trying to reform its own organisation, the Swiss government is considering changing the laws – changes that will impact on the (about) 60 international sports organisations that are headquartered in Switzerland. However, the non-governmental sports multinationals don’t have to fear too many new rules and laws as the Swiss administration is working closely with the Basel Institute on Governance – the University institute headed by Professor Mark Pieth, FIFA’s chief reformer. This actually means that FIFA has a direct influence on the decision as to whether Switzerland’s lawmakers will eventually put change into place.

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Jean Francois Tanda: Oxygen for the people

The moment of truth is approaching. By April 15, the world will get to know how FIFA is going to handle the famous ISL dossier, i.e. the bribes paid to high ranking FIFA officials by its former marketing partner.

It will be a litmus test for FIFA and its reforms. The world is keen to see if FIFA is really serious about cleaning up the mess of the past. If FIFA seriously wants to reboot,

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Jean Francois Tanda: Hard to say I’m sorry

What a story! Loads of Money. Qatar! One tournament every two years. A project including big names such as Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Liverpool and the best football players worldwide. What a dream of a football league!

The story run by The Times of London has all the ingredients of a fairy tale for adults. And like the lovely stories for kids, it was freely invented. At least, all available information so far suggests it.