|
German FA (DFB) president Wolfgang Niersbach has published a 10-point plan to combat corruption at FIFA after joining the organisation's Executive Committee. Niersbach has been touted as a potential successor to Sepp Blatter when the FIFA president formally steps down, which is expected to happen in December, and he has written an open letter to the 26,000 clubs and 6.8 million members that belong to the organisation calling for more transparency. Referring to the ongoing corruption scandal at FIFA, Niersbach wrote on the DFB website: "Greed and the lack of morality of a few have put the whole of football under general suspicion. "The international football is in its biggest ever crisis! Everything that makes up our beautiful game is at stake." Niersbach, who took former DFB president Theo Zwanziger's seat on the Executive Committee at the FIFA congress in Zurich last month, outlined his programme to change the organisation from within, without claiming that "they are the solution to all problems." Niersbach's 10-point plan 1. A change at the top of FIFA as soon as possible. "With all due respect for his body of work, Sepp Blatter is not obliged to himself stall his own resignation," Niersbach said. 2. Resolve the corruption claims. "Coming to terms with the past is the requirement to win back new trust in the organisation," Niersbach said. 3. Introduce an integrity check for leading figures at FIFA. "Only completely trustworthy personalities should be allowed a seat in the most important committees of the world football's governing body," Niersbach said. 4. Allow members of the FIFA congress, rather than the continental associations, to decide on new members of the Executive Committee. 5. 5. Bring in term limits for the "presidency and other important functions." UEFA had already voted in support of that proposal during the 2014 FIFA congress in Sao Paolo. 6. Make the process of deciding World Cup hosts transparent and ensure it is closely tied to technical evaluations of potential hosts, as is the case with UEFA. Niersbach said that, if FIFA had applied them to the Qatar bid for 2022, "the technically weakest bid would not have been put to vote." He contrasted that with the 2020 European Championship, which will be played all over the continent, and where Tel Aviv, Sofia, Minsk and Skopje were not allowed to enter the vote "because they did not fulfil the technical requirements." 7. Respect human rights. "Free speech, freedom of press, the protection of minorities, tolerance and respect are values that have to apply for all World Cup participants," Niersbach said. 8. Control cash flows. 9. Adapt the World Cup voting system. Niersbach said that the current "one country, one vote" system should come under scrutiny during the reform process, and said he regarded "a certain weighting of the votes on the basis of size and the sporting relevance of the associations" as "expedient." 10. Develop a reform agenda without the help of current FIFA president Blatter. Niersbach also rejected recent media reports about possible irregularities during the awarding process for the 2006 World Cup, which took place in Germany. Several papers last week listed coincidences such as the delivery of 1,200 rocket-propelled grenades to Saudi Arabia as well as a series of friendlies that Bayern Munich arranged against Trinidad and Tobago, Malta, Thailand and a Tunisian club, which were set up by former German TV mogul Leo Kirch, who held the broadcasting rights to the 2006 World Cup. "In our bid we did not adopt unfair practices," Niersbach said. "Instead, Germany in 2000, after eight years of meticulous work, was awarded the World Cup in a clean procedure."
|
