Guido Tognoni is a former high ranked FIFA manager. Today, he is a leading critic of Sepp Blatter and FIFA’s Executive Committee. Mark Pieth called him a “former poodle” of Blatter and “a commodity trader” with no moral right to criticise him.
Canadian governance expert and lawyer, Alexandra Wrage, once was a member of FIFA’s Internal Governance Committee (IGC). She left the group, basically saying it was a waste of time to work for FIFA as the football governing body refused to implement serious steps for a change. And Mark Pieth? But according to Pieth she used to work for a gun trafficker and has now stepped down for “business reasons”.
Only a few days after FIFA’s annual congress – this time held in Mauritius – Professor Pieth was a guest on Swiss public television SRF in a talk show called Schawinski.
Only a few days after FIFA congress in Mauritius, Swiss criminal law professor Mark Pieth appeared on a talk show on Swiss public television SRF. Pieth was invited as head of FIFA’s IGC. TV host Roger Schawinski, a legend in Switzerland known for his merciless interviews, is the first journalist I have seen ask the really hard and painful questions of FIFA’s head reformer. And Pieth did not come up with any good responses.
After having publicly criticised FIFA’s choice not to elect his friend, Luis Moreno Ocampo, as FIFA’s chief prosecutor, Pieth defended FIFA’s decision in the talk show. Confronted with his former publicly repeated ‘key recommendations” to FIFA to make the salaries of Sepp Blatter and other executive committee members transparent, in the talk show, he now says that recommendation was an ‘additional point” that would be ‘good to have” only.
Pieth’s appearance on TV was quite disturbing. After his repeated attempts to put pressure on Blatter & Co. with the help of international media, such as Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Pieth suddenly appeared gentle and tame towards FIFA. He seems to be attempting to cling on to his FIFA job.
Asked how much he earns for this, he now responded in the talk show that he did not earn anything. While two years ago, Pieth confirmed that FIFA paid around SFr5000 a day, he now denies this, calling this number “rumors” – without saying what the right number is.
The renowned law professor seems to have lost his compass in the FIFA jungle.
He has always publicly said that he would leave the FIFA job if he felt he was being used as window dressing. In the talk show, he defended FIFA’s no-reform decision on age limit, term limit, transparency about salaries and benefits of the executive committee members. Pieth became angry when talk-meister Schawinski suggested he had not succeeded with any of his main suggestion for changes. “I succeeded with two thirds of my recommendations,” he barked, naming the new Audit Committee and the two chambers of FIFA’s internal justice as key examples.
Pieth even criticised Alexandra Wrage for having left the IGC. Confronted with her public critics and asked if she was right for leaving, Pieth hit out, saying she stepped down although the IGC – including her – had decided to stay another year as FIFA consultants.
Professor Pieth seems to have arrived in the inner circle of FIFA where everything seems to be about staying in power.
Jean Francois Tanda is a leading investigative journalist specialising in international sports. He writes for weekly Swiss business newspaper Handelszeitung.