FIFA’s Executive Committee has officially approved of new proposals it calls “reforms” to tackle the shockingly deep corruption within the international officiating body of the sports of football. The plans include reforming the FIFA Ethics Committee by dividing it into two separate divisions with separate responsibilities in handling cases of corrupt officials. The “reforms” also include background checking and evaluating all future candidates for certain positions within FIFA.
But of course, despite current FIFA President Joseph Sepp Blatter’s praise of these “reforms”, there is a massive criticism of these plans by multiple entities including Transparency International.
These “reforms” in reality are not exactly the reforms which were suggested by FIFA’s Independent Governance Committee which were mostly ignored by FIFA officials.
In addition, these “reforms” do not exactly change the status quo but merely changes the appearance of the current infrastructure of the organization without touching any old issues or even introducing actual reforms in procedures and rules.
All of this follows the 2011 bribery scandal (which allegedly had Mohamed Bin Hammam exchanging money for votes in last year’s FIFA presidential election) that rocked the Caribbean Football Union along with the upper echelon of FIFA’s executive body.
All of the resulting scandals and probes have led to the exile of the now banned Mohamed Bin Hammam, a former contender for the office of FIFA president, and public anger towards Joseph Sepp Blatter who recently became the president of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association for a fourth term unopposed.
Eight federation presidents from St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guyana and the British Virgin Islands also came under investigation along with 16 other Caribbean football officials.
FIFA committee members Horace Burrell and Colin Klass were suspended, Klass for 26 months and Burrell for six while six other elected officials were also banned temporarily.
Others investigated even included the former prime minister Patrick John of the Dominican Republic and Trinidad’s general secretary Oliver Camps.
Chuck Blazer, an American national who blew the whistle on Hammam, also came under the Ethics Committee’s probing eye after former FBI director Louis Freeh’s agency found suspicious payments numbering in the hundred of thousands of U.S. dollars to Blazer’s offshore accounts.
Those who also came under investigation included Raymond Guishard, Damien Hughes, Everton Gonsalves, Derrick Gordon, Lionel Haven, Philippe White, Vincent Cassell, and Tandica Hughes.
It seemed that the scandal would end with the investigations, the use of the bribery money for FIFA programs and the ousting of Hammam.
However, Hammam, who claims innocence, announced plans to take his case to the Court of Sport Arbitration while Blatter attracted widespread criticism and threats of boycotting FIFA matches for making “out-of-touch” remarks on racism in the world of football.
Then came along revelations that exposed plots by corrupted officials to somehow fix World Cup matches in 2018 and 2022 in exchange for large sums of money…
