A FIFA advisory panel is pressing ahead to draft reforms of the scandal-shaken world soccer body despite the suspension of FIFA president Sepp Blatter and other senior officials amid corruption investigations, the panel’s head said.
“This has no influence on the reform process itself because our work continues,” FIFA Reform Committee chairman Francois Carrard told Swiss SRF radio in an interview aired yesterday.
He said the committee’s efforts were independent of the people in charge at FIFA, whose leadership is in disarray after Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini, a FIFA vice president, were both suspended for 90 days by FIFA’s ethics committee this week.
Both deny any wrongdoing and have filed appeals to try to reverse the provisional bans this week.
Former International Olympic Committee director-general Carrard heads the reform committee that FIFA’s executive committee set up in July. The executive committee is supposed to review its ideas before they go before a members’ congress scheduled for Feb. 26th.
Carrard gave no details of what his group was considering. It remains unclear if his panel is to incorporate radical reforms proposed last month by FIFA Audit and Compliance Committee chairman Domenico Scala.
Scala’s radical overhaul plan, launched after seven soccer officials were arrested in Zurich, Switzerland, in May on US warrants, calls for 12-year term limits for elected FIFA officials, full disclosure of top officials’ financial compensation and more detailed integrity checks on members of committees.
It also includes replacing the powerful executive committee with a governing council elected by congress, and a management committee to handle the day-to-day affairs of the organization.
Carrard’s group is made up of representatives of FIFA’s six continental confederations — the very ones who could see their powers reduced under Scala’s reform plan.
Asked what chances of success he saw for reforms at FIFA, Carrard said: “I am cautious. As a lawyer I have won many trials I should have lost, and sometimes lost what I should have won.”
The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) said the integrity of the FIFA presidential election has been jeopardized after the suspension of contender Platini.
Platini’s ban was imposed on Thursday after a payment he received from FIFA became embroiled in a Swiss criminal investigation. Although Platini’s ban expires before the presidential election, he is unlikely to now pass FIFA integrity checks after the Oct. 26 deadline for the submission of candidacies.
CONMEBOL has joined Platini’s UEFA in backing the former France captain, who had been considered the election front-runner.
CONMEBOL said: “Platini has not been found guilty of any charge. Therefore, the provisional ban jeopardizes the integrity of the electoral process to the FIFA presidency.”
Additional reporting by AP
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