http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organisation/bodies/news/newsid=1547662/

Pieth's team will receive reports from four FIFA task forces (Task Force Revision of Statutes, Task Force FIFA Ethics Committee, Task Force Transparency and Compliance, Task Force Football 2014, read the media release on the right hand side on the matter) before recommending reforms.

The University of Basel professor will outline the scope of the Independent Good Governance Committee at a press conference next Wednesday at 14.30 CET at the Home of FIFA.

Mark's website:
http://www.pieth.ch/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-25...evelopment.html

Soccer’s governing body says money recovered as part of the probe into gifts given by banned FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam to Caribbean voters will be used on development projects.

“The money will be used for football development programs,” FIFA said in an e-mail. “The ethics committee is currently examining all the existing possibilities.”

The governing body has announced plans to update its rules and regulations after Bin Hammam’s ban, and investigations into other officials who allegedly offered to trade their votes in the competition to stage the World Cups in 2018 and 2022 for money when approached in an undercover newspaper report.

Blatter has said the reform program will be complete by June 2013 at the latest. Yesterday it was announced that Swiss anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth would be responsible for an 18-member team that will oversee the changes.

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/world...-reforms-112511

"It takes some time, but we are working step-by-step, and it's important to have the adequate personalities in this Good Governance Committee."

Sepp Blatter has confirmed that FIFA's new Good Governance Committee will have the power to review the process that led to World Cups being awarded to Russia and Qatar, though the FIFA president did not say such a review would necessarily occur.

Speaking to FOX Soccer, Blatter said the committee, tasked with recommending reforms to world soccer's governing body, will have broad powers to investigate the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar (respectively), should there be cause to do so.

Blatter also said asking about how the World Cups were awarded "is not only a difficult question, it's a good question."

http://dohanews.co/post/12920111615

The ITUC said unions were “continuing to receive reports of unsafe working conditions and abuse of workers’ rights as Qatar sets out to build nine stadiums in 10 years using mostly migrant labour.”

…Labour organisations “would mobilise workers and football fans to target each of FIFA’s football associations and the international body to stop the World Cup in Qatar if labour rights are not respected,” the ITUC added.

“With 308 national trade union centres in 153 countries, the international trade union movement has the members, the power and the mandate to take action to stop the Qatar World Cup.”


http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/qatar2022/news/newsid=1544426/index.html

It was agreed that FIFA and ITUC will work jointly over the next few months to address labour issues with the Qatari authorities.

It was also agreed to add labour related criteria to the bidding process of future FIFA World Cups.

http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2011/11/fifa-opens-door-to-investigation-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fmideastsoccer+%28The+Turbulent+World+of+Middle+East+Soccer%29

Reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy engineered UEFA head Michel Platini’s vote in favour of the Qatari bid at a meeting in November of last year with Qatari Crown Prince Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani in which he also persuaded that Qatari to acquire financially trouble team Paris Saint-Germain have also revived questions about the Gulf state’s hosting of the World Cup. Qatar had in 2006 walked away from a possible acquisition the underachieving club that was haemorrhaging money and was renowned for its hooligan element.

Doha Dec 16, 2010

http://screencast.com/t/uEh9uiLs0xiF


Speaking in London last month, Hassan al Thawadi, the Qatar bid committee's secretary general said that the ''perception (of corruption) will always be a sense of frustration until we overcome how people view us.”

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/lowy-i-wont-give-up-on-2022-world-cup-20111128-1o39t.html

FRESH from being re-elected for a new four-year term, Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy has boldly declared that Australia's bid for the 2022 World Cup is not over yet.


''You mention the World Cup - I don't know if you recall when I came back from that fateful day, I said, 'This is not the last word about awarding the World Cup','' he said.
''It wasn't the last word, and the last word hasn't been heard yet. You can read anything into that you want.

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/footballgovernance/01/54/99/69/fifagutachten-en.pdf

The aim of this report is to set the stage for a further debate within FIFA on possible governance reforms. The report is written on a mid-abstract level, the Recommendations will need to be further substantiated. It is anticipated that, based on the decisions of the Executive Committee in autumn 2011, a Task Force will prepare the necessary documents for approval by Congress in spring 2012.

2.1.
Decisions over the Hosting of Competitions

Past experience has demonstrated that the risks linked to these highly visible and politically sensitive decisions are actually a mix of corruption risk and conflict of interest concerns. Suspicion that individuals either sold their vote or profiteered directly from the choice of venue is combined with allegations of a strategic use of development money in order to influence decision takers of ExCo.

2.2. Decisions relating to Commercialisation

Commercialisation involves in particular the marketing of TV rights, sponsorship, licensing, hospitality and ticketing. Overall it generates huge amounts of money and could in theory be a source of manipulations. FIFA, after some bad experiences, moved away from a concept of assigning marketing fully to outside partners towards an in-house solution.
...........................................................................................................................

The two introduction paragraphs are not conclusions that were reached based on investigations, they are listing the two main problems/known facts within the FIFA "family" in general.

Why was it then called a "World Cup Bidding process"...??

The process was known to have been corrupted and under severe potential for misuse from within when they presented it as a "bid".
The whole event was a fraud, and FIFA officials knew that from the start!
...........................................................................................................................

"The traditional governance structure of the sports governing bodies was not adapted to this new role. Several crises and scandals in the past led to gradual structural reform. In many ways FIFA has taken considerable steps from a “gentlemen’s club” to a structure resembling professional corporate management".

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12...on-program.html

Transparency International, an adviser to soccer’s governing body on anti-corruption reforms, has withdrawn its assistance because it doesn’t feel a special group tasked with creating reforms is “truly independent.”

Sylvia Schenk, senior adviser for sport, said the organization turned down an invitation to join FIFA’s outside governance committee because its chairman Mark Pieth is being paid by the soccer body and also after Pieth said he wouldn’t be looking at allegations of past wrongdoing.

“Yesterday we learned this commission is not dealing with the past, first step we said in our report is dealing with the past,” Schenk said.

Pieth said he was “cheesed off” by Schenk’s comments...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/so...0389/index.html

SYDNEY (AP) -A government report says Australian A-League football players are overpaid and blames FIFA's bid process for the failure of Australia's bid to secure the 2022 World Cup.

The review approved of the quality of Australia's $45 million World Cup bid, saying it was FIFA's flawed bid process rather than any concern over Australia's submission that undermined its chances of success.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sport/Scandal-hit_Fifa_given_anti-corruption_roadmap.html?cid=31668858

The Swiss sports ministry and parliament are also looking into the past activities of the Zurich-based (FIFA) organization.



Fifa’s “credibility gap” would always remain as long as allegations remain in the open and the accused play a prominent role in the organisation, Transparency’s Sylvia Schenk told swissinfo.ch.

“To regain credibility, there has to be an independent committee looking both into the past and future,” she said. “Otherwise these allegations will just keep resurfacing again and again.”

Schenk also called on a separate independent body – possibly from the private sector – to implement any reforms that come out of the governance committee’s work.

Blatter himself said he welcomed the report at its release in Zurich on Wednesday, but made no comments about its contents.

Earlier this year, he promised that Fifa would make public restricted court documents that allegedly show Fifa officials had taken bribes in the past.