Presidential contender Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa delivers a speech at the Fifa electoral congress in Zurich, Switzerland, on Friday. (Photo: AFP)
Presidential contender Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa delivers a speech at the Fifa electoral congress in Zurich, Switzerland, on Friday. (Photo: AFP)
Fifa members on Friday approved major reforms aiming to end corruption scandals and voted for a new president who faces a mountainous task boosting the image of football’s governing body.
The number of candidates vying to turn the page on Sepp Blatter’s tainted rule was reduced from five to four after South African tycoon Tokyo Sexwale withdrew just minutes before the first round of voting.
The landmark presidential contest is an Asia vs Europe battle between Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Gianni Infantino.
But former Fifa vice-president Prince Ali bin al Hussein is aiming to upset the odds and he received a boost with the heavyweight backing of the United States and Australia.
Outsider Jerome Champagne, an ex-Fifa official, has also been doggedly pleading his cause to the more than 200 delegations in Zurich.
The result is uncertain but football leaders were given an immediate warning that the vote and new reforms must convince the world after several years of mounting scandal with corruption and doubts about World Cup bidding.
“This congress will quite certainly mark a watershed moment in the history of Fifa,” acting president Issa Hayatou said in his opening speech.
The reform package was adopted by 179 members, while 22 voted against and six abstained at a congress seeking to turn the page on
The measures drawn up by a Fifa committee are designed to limit the authority of top leaders and end patronage and waste that prevailed during Blatter’s 18-year term.The president’s job has been altered to function like a corporate chairman of the board, providing strategic guidance but with less management authority.
Fifa’s executive committee, which had become an epicentre of graft allegations, has been re-branded as a Fifa council. It will operate like a corporate board of directions.
Fifa’s secretary general, previously number two to the president, will serve as world football’s CEO.
Measures to improve financial transparency at the multi-billion dollar organisation were also included.
Fifa’s sponsors who are holding out on deals and prosecutors in many countries were waiting on the result for signs of football’s commitment to reform.
The scandal that erupted after seven top officials were arrested at a Fifa congress in May “shook the very foundations of our organisation,” Hayatou told Fifa delegates.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said football and all sports federations had to improve governance.
“Today you have this great chance to turn the page,” he said.
“We need to give new answers to the new questions with regards to credibility and good governance,” he said.
Blatter, 79, was the big absentee at the congress. The Swiss sports baron suffered a spectacular fall over the last nine months.
Swiss police, acting under US warrants, arrested seven Fifa officials in Zurich two days before his re-election last May.
Blatter has since been banned from football for six years for ethics breaches and could face criminal charges.
Infantino, general secretary of Europe’s football bloc Uefa, and Sheikh Salman, president of the Asian Football Confederation, have offered starkly different paths for Fifa. Infantino has proposed increasing the World Cup from 32 to 40 teams and to more than double the amount given back to the 209 national associations to more than $1 billion in total every four years.
