Carlos Alberto: Game should be run by ex-players
Reuters - Monday 30 May 2011, 23:09
RIO DE JANEIRO - The corruption scandal
embroiling football's world governing body FIFA highlights the
fact the sport should be run by former players, Brazil's 1970
World Cup-winning captain Carlos Alberto Torres said on Monday.
"There should be a general change, there are so many good
people who could take office," Carlos Alberto told Reuters
before he named former French international Michel Platini and
Germany's Franz Beckenbauer as former players who have done good
work as football administrators.
"Platini is doing a fantastic job at (European governing
body) UEFA, you can see the success of the Champions League," he
said. "There's Beckenbauer, who brilliantly organised the World
Cup in Germany (in 2006)."
Allegations of bribery among FIFA officials, being
investigated by the body's Ethics Committee, have led to the
suspension of CONCACAF president Jack Warner and Asian Football
Confederation counterpart Mohamed bin Hammam.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been cleared by the
committee and is set to run unopposed for a fourth term in
Wednesday's presidential election after Bin Hammam withdrew his
candidacy at the weekend following the allegations and Carlos
Alberto said it indicated time might be right for a change.
"I think there should be new people in command of the
bodies," he said in a telephone interview. "With the same people
staying (in power) so long there is a vicious circle.
"I think renewal is good in any area, not just football.
That thing of a person being eternally in charge creates
complications that make people suspect there is corruption,"
added the Brazilian.
"The ideal would be for things to be clear, in the sense of
honest, but from the moment there are suspicions I don't think
it's at all good for football."
There was an attempt in March by the little-known group
Change FIFA to put former Chile defender Elias Figueroa up as a
candidate in the election but after mulling it over he decided
he had too little time to prepare a creditable platform from
which to try to wrest power from Blatter.
"My idea was that great figures (in football) should have more
presence, those with most (footballing) qualifications,
experience," the 64-year-old Figueroa, a three times South
American Player of the Year in the 1970s, told Reuters on
Monday.
"It's a shame all this is coming out in public, it dirties
football."