Australia: Blatter must be keep word on reform
Reuters - Thursday 02 June 2011, 04:00
SYDNEY - FIFA president Sepp Blatter must
be held to account on his promise to reform football's world
governing body after his re-election in the midst of a major
corruption scandal, Australia's sports minister said on
Thursday.
Australia is still smarting after its A$45 million
($47.7m) bid to host the 2022 World Cup garnered just one
solitary vote in last December's ballot of the 22-man FIFA
executive committee.
Blatter was re-elected unopposed on Wednesday for a fourth
four-year term as FIFA president and immediately pushed through
changes designed to make the choice of World Cup hosts more
democratic and beef up the fight against corruption.
The European Club Association (ECA) led calls for Blatter to
implement further reforms and Mark Arbib added his voice to the
chorus on Thursday, saying FIFA needed to follow the example of
the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
"Reform is necessary," he told ABC radio. "What FIFA
requires is action that took place in the IOC after Salt Lake
City when the IOC cleaned up its game and that is exactly what
FIFA now requires.
"And of course the voting members of FIFA need to ensure
that president Blatter is held to his word.
"He has said he will reform the organisation and it's time
for that to take place."
The IOC made major changes to its bidding process after the
1998 corruption scandal surrounding the selection of Salt Lake
City to host the 2002 Winter Games.
The scandal which has hit FIFA over the last month centres
on Asian Football Confederation (AFC) chief Mohamed Bin
Hammam's ultimately aborted campaign to take on Blatter in the
presidential election.
It has also, however, re-ignited the debate over the
awarding of the 2022 World Cup finals to Bin Hammam's home
country Qatar.
GOOD STEP
The head of the influential German Football Association,
Theo Zwanziger, said FIFA could not afford to ignore any
suspicions of corruption in the process. Qatar's bid team
strongly deny any wrongdoing.
Football Federation Australia (FFA) chief executive Ben
Buckley confirmed Australia had voted against the English FA's
motion to delay Blatter's re-election and said he was confident
the Swiss would implement reforms.
"Well certainly the language coming from the president and
the rest of the FIFA executives today was positive in that it
would look to reform the decision-making process, particularly
around the World Cup," he told ABC.
"There's a strong willingness for FIFA to look at the
governance practices and that's a good step in the right
direction."
Bin Hammam had been due to stand against Blatter on
Wednesday but withdrew his candidacy before facing an ethics
committee hearing into the bribery allegations.
The Qatari and Jack Warner, his counterpart in the North,
Central American and Caribbean governing body CONCACAF, were
accused of arranging to pay delegates of the Caribbean Football
Union $40,000 in cash to vote for Bin Hammam.
Both were suspended over the allegations but FIFA's Ethics Committee cleared Blatter. The case against Trinidadian Warner
and Bin Hammam, who have denied any wrongdoing, will be heard in
July.