FIFA have rejected calls from the Coucil of Europe for Sepp Blatter's unopposed re-election as president to be investigated.
Blatter,75,won the FIFA presidential election unopposed in June last year following the withdrawal of rival Mohammed Bin Hammam,who was later banned from the organisation for life after being found guilty of bribery.
Switzerland born,Blatter has been in the office of FIFA president since 1998, and that time has been subject of several allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
The Council of Europe,an independent legal and democratic advisory body,called this week for FIFA to investigate whether the candidates in the recent election for president and together with the FIFA president(Blatter)-exploited their institutional positions to obtain unfair advantages of themselves or for potential voters.
The council also suggested that FIFA should publish full story of judical and other documents relating to past corruption allegations,and full light of the facts underlying the various scandals which,in recent years have ternished its image and that international football.
Of specific concern to the Council is FIFA's former marketing arm International Sports and Leisure,which has closed due to bankruptcy in 2001.
The Council of Europe had a meeting last week with Swiss prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand,who led the a court case against the ISL executive charged with financial mismanagement.
FIFA have rejected any claims against Blatter for impropriety and stood by their own proposals for internal reforms.All charges against Blatter were dismissed in full by the Ethics Committee after they found that the are no code of ethics that has been committed.
Regarding the process of reform,a clear road map has been established and published by FIFA and several task forces as well as an indepedent governance committee are working on proposal that will be presented at the FIFA executive committee at the end of March 2012.
The governing body also claimed there were certain inaccuracies in the Council of Europe's motion for a FIFA investigation.
What we should know is that corruption is there and will always be there. It is very sad to here that top management(fifa bodies) are handling the elections unprofessional.
ReplyDelete