FIFA’s executive committee approved a package of planned reforms yesterday aimed at cleaning up football’s scandal-plagued world governing body, proposing integrity checks and term limits for senior officials and a new separation of policy and management positions.
The proposals, which would also increase representation for women, will be presented in February to FIFA’s Congress, which has the power to alter its statutes.
At the same time, the executive committee, currently headed by an interim president owing to the suspension of Sepp Blatter, delayed a decision on a controversial proposal to expand the World Cup from 32 to 40 teams.
Ironically, an announcement intended to help FIFA clean up its act was overshadowed by the arrests of executive committee members Alfredo Hawit and Juan Angel Napout at the luxury Zurich hotel where they had been staying, and news that US officials were to issue 14 new indictments related to corruption in football.
Hawit and Napout, respectively heads of the North and Latin American confederations CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, were arrested by Swiss police at the behest of US authorities on suspicion of taking millions of dollars in bribes linked to...
