There is no doubt that this whole process has been filled with delays that could have been prevented.

-FIFA Executive Committee/Mark Pieth did not know the person picked would not accept the position until the day of the meeting? Really?

Blatter says he's "not so happy'' about a delay in announcing which officials will spearhead FIFA's revamped investigations unit. The announcement was delayed because of health issues involving one of the candidates.

Something I have been asking myself for a while now: Who benefits the most from all the delays in implementing the new reforms and looking into the past...

-2018...

http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organisation/bodies/congress/news/newsid=1635555/

(The page above will have a link for the live event)

The 62nd FIFA Congress is all set to take place in Budapest on Thursday and Friday this week and you can follow the whole event live on FIFA.com.

The Congress kicks off at 17.00 (11:00 am ET) on Thursday with an opening ceremony.
The following day at 09.00 (3:00 am ET) the Congress meeting itself gets under way.
The Congress will draw to a close with a press conference on Friday when FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter will answer questions from journalists in Budapest. (*exact time to be determined).
*A guess might be somewhere between (8:00 am - 12:00 pm ET)


Agenda:
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/bodies/01/62/06/11/fifaageda2012.pdf

Football's world governing body FIFA have elected a female member to the executive committee for the first time in it's history.

Lydia Nsekera, the president of the Burundi Football Association, will be installed as the co-opted executive committee member at the 62nd FIFA Congress this week with the formal election of a woman on the committee to follow at next year's Congress

Nsekera, 45, is a member of the women's football and the women's World Cup committees and is also on the organising committee for the Olympic Football Tournaments and has been part of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2009.


Jeffrey Webb, a Cayman Islands banker, is the only candidate in a poll Wednesday to succeed disgraced former FIFA vice president Jack Warner as the head of CONCACAF. The body consists of 35 countries in North and Central America and the Caribbean.

One year ago, Webb’s home country was one of four whistle-blowers on allegations of bribery, involving a longtime Caribbean strongman, Warner, and Qatar’s Mohamed bin Hammam, who wanted to run against Blatter at last year’s presidential election.



Gordon Derrick, the head of the Antigua and Barbuda FA, has been appointed as successor to Jack Warner as president of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU).

Derrick was reprimanded as part of the fall-out of the FIFA bribery scandal last year that saw Warner resign from football.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/so...1118/index.html

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - A list of financial mismanagement allegations against former CONCACAF leaders Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer was outlined to 40 football nations Wednesday, just minutes after they elected Jeffrey Webb as their new president.

Officials from across Central American and the Caribbean turned on their former general secretary Blazer, the most senior American official in world soccer, and voted to seek his removal from FIFA's executive committee after 16 years.

FIFA must decide how to deal with the issue at its full Congress of 208 countries on Friday.

Most members, including some sanctioned by FIFA in the 2011 bribery affair, applauded the suggestion that Blazer be investigated by a FIFA ethics panel.

Osiris Guzman of the Dominican Republic, who served a 15-day suspension from soccer, demanded that Blazer be "taken to justice. We were taken to the ethics committee for something that was nothing like this.''

They hailed the new president for saying: "We have a responsibility to make sure the past ... will never be repeated.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/23/chuck-blazer-concacaf-accusations-fifa?newsfeed=true


"I spent 21 years building the confederation and its competitions and its revenues and I'm the one responsible for its good levels of income.

I'm perfectly satisfied that I did an excellent job.

I think this is a reflection of those who were angry at me having caused the action against Warner. This is also a reaction by people who have their own agenda. I now have to consider what my options are but to say the least I am very disappointed."

Blazer said he was "not yet in litigation" to retrieve the payments he was owed but said his contract had included 10% of all Concacaf's TV and sponsorship deals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/23/chuck-blazer-concacaf-accusations-fifa?newsfeed=true

Concacaf's lawyer John Collins told the congress he had instructed lawyers in England and Trinidad to investigate the ownership of the João Havelange centre of excellence, built at a cost of $22.5m . Collins said: "I received their report yesterday and it appears the centre of excellence was put in the name of two corporations owned by Mr Warner and his family." Collins said Concacaf should take legal action to recover the centre from Warner.

In relation to the tax irregularities, Collins said no returns had been filed since at least 2007 and maybe before then. Blazer said that no tax returns had been declared in the US because Concacaf was a non-profit organisation, and no profits had been made in the US.



The allegations sparked fury from delegates - many of whom from Caribbean countries ended up being sanctioned by Fifa's ethics committee in the fall-out from the bribery scandal which saw Warner resign and the Asian Fifa member Mohamed bin Hammam banned for life.
...........................................................................................................................

So the guys in the room taking envelopes with $40,000 of US currency in them are now the ones taking about how shocked they are about the corruption inside CONCACAF.


I need to go make some more popcorn and get a soda, this is going to be quite the show to watch!

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/ne...rs/1002207.html

-Sepp Blatter comments
"The Caribbean Football Union have just had their congress and they call it a congress of reconciliation"

"Things are moving forwards. It is changing".

"I am sure you will see at the (Budapest) congress that we are back in the harbour, not heaven yet, but we are taking more people on board and are heading to calm, clearer waters".

"I am an optimist"

"The change began over the last year, or when the Ethics Committee started to act, and we have lost, directly or indirectly five members of the executive committee. That is a big number and new people have come in".

"New faces have come in, new people - and they speak up, they intervene, they are playing a very big part"

"For me its the end of what was happening there. The dogs may still be barking but the caravan has left town".

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/97adaf62828f439790052acb02555423/SOC--FIFA-CONCACAF-President/

BUDAPEST , Hungary — New CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb says a team from his football confederation should win the 2026 World Cup.

Webb vowed to focus on the game and promised to shift the region's focus from "politics and economics" to football.

"We must move the clouds and allow the sunshine in,"

"The 2026 World Cup belongs to CONCACAF."

Webb said CONCACAF members would be called to an extraordinary congress at the end of the year when the body's financial and tax affairs will be further scrutinized.
120554

http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents...oogle_news_blog

CONCACAF voted for a motion calling for FIFA to remove Blazer from its executive committee, but found Thursday that its request was too late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/dcu...jbnU_story.html

CONCACAF spokesman Scott Gleba tells The Associated Press: “We’ve been alerted that the deadline has passed.”

FIFA rules require two months’ notice of Congress business. One of CONCACAF’s 35 FIFA members can still try to force debate on Blazer’s status on Friday.