March 2 – Issa Hayatou’s enthusiasm in making sure FIFA’s reform package was passed by Congress last Friday before he stepped down as acting president may be partly explained by the fact that he had a six-figure incentive.
Throughout his temporary tenure, and several times in the final few days before handing over to Gianni Infantino, Hayatou made several passionate speeches about the need to push through the wide-ranging measures.
According to Bloomberg quoting an unnamed source, when the veteran leader of African football, a long-time Sepp Blatter ally, took on the interim presidency in early October, half of his salary was made contingent on the success of the reform measures.
There was however a lot more in play than Hayatou’s incentive bonus. If the reforms had not been passed then FIFA had been given the warning that it would lose its ‘victim status’ in the eyes of the current US investigators and hence lose any claim over money recovered – already amounting to more than $100 million. CONCACAF had been faced with the same warning in considering their reforms.
One of the revelations from the Congress on Friday is that FIFA was spending $10 million a month on lawyers, presumably with much of that spend creating a robust set of reforms that can be upheld in their statutes. There is clearly a lot of money in reform.
Hayatou has been a FIFA executive committee member for a quarter of a century and has himself been the subject of some controversy.
Despite being independently wealthy, he was reprimanded by the International Olympic committee in 2011 for receiving kickbacks from FIFA’s now defunct former marketing partner ISL and was accused, before a UK parliamentary session a couple of years ago, of having taken a bribe to vote for Qatar to stage for the 2022 World Cup, an allegation he has always denied.
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