By Paul Nicholson
February 15 – The Council of Europe has launched an investigation into FIFA, its business activities and its governance, according to former president Anne Brasseur who said she was “very concerned” at FIFA reform progress.
Brasseur, chair of the sports committee at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, said: “Under the new leadership I see no reform.”
Speaking to Swiss broadcaster SRF’s ‘Rundschau’ programme, she singled out the ethics process for special comment saying: “If someone wants to uncover a grievance, he runs the risk of being dismissed. This does not contribute to credibility.”
FIFA’s new regime has moved swiftly to fire a number of whistleblowers, explaining that they were casualties in a re-organisation of FIFA’s internal departments. Two external lawyers have subsequently been brought into the organisation to deal with various staff employment issues and grievances that were running out of control by the end of 2016.
At the Mexico Congress last May, new president Gianni Infantino railroaded a number of agenda points including the removal of the independence of the ethics body. The FIFA Council can now appoint or dismiss the members of its Ethics Body for 12 months as well as members of its Audit and Compliance. Domenico Scala resigned from his ethics role soon after that rule was passed.
It is strong corporate and political governance that particularly concerns Brasseur, who is is expected to meet FIFA officials in May.
Referring to the debacle over Infantino’s salary arrangements”. You just have to know what you can and can not do…Either one has decency or not.”
In a separate interview with the same programme, FIFA general secretary Fatma Samoura expressed surprise at Brasseur’s comments, saying: “I invite her to look at what FIFA is doing.”
But perhaps that is the problem. For example, on Samoura’s watch FIFA has completely revamped its development team, closing four offices in Africa in Cairo, Abujan, Yaounde and Gaberone, replacing them with new offices in Johannesburg and in Dakar in her home country of Senegal.
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