“We want to have FIFA money used for the intended purpose and ensure that budgeted monetary amounts are utilised properly. I have attended all FIFA Development Committees and it’s clear that in the last 10-12 years, substantial revenues generated by FIFA have been invested in its development programmes. Where there’s more money, there’s always more risk.” -Domenico Scala
FIFA has already increased its annual audit of member associations, increasing from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, those who are audited each year, with much stricter guidelines now set in order for associations to receive Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) or Goal project funds.
“I believe that I can help FIFA, and although Friday’s Congress is seen by many as the end of a two year process, we will continue to make proposals in future if things need to be changed." -DS
“People tend to be ‘Euro-centric’ in their views of FIFA, but it’s a global organisation. I have never been blocked, and I have always received any information that I’ve requested. But it’s an illusion to think you can change everything from Friday to Monday. You are realistically looking at a period of 3-4 years, but the bottom line is that the glass is more than half full.” -DS 415763
The frontrunner in the race for the most powerful post in world sport has backed FIFA's reform process, saying world football's governing body is "on the right track". Thomas Bach, is one of six candidates vying to succeed Jacques Rogge, as President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the organisation behind the Olympic Games.
Although widely seen as the likeliest winner, Bach faces stiff competition for the much-coveted post from five other men: Ser Miang Ng of Singapore; Puerto Rico's Richard Carrión; Ching-Kuo Wu of Taiwan; Denis Oswald of Switzerland; and Sergey Bubka, the former pole-vaulter from Ukraine.
Both Sepp Blatter, FIFA's President, and Issa Hayatou, President of the African Football Confederation (CAF) are IOC members with a direct say in the outcome of the contest. 425342
UEFA president Michel Platini has long supported switching the 2022 tournament to the winter but now his number two, general secretary Gianni Infantino, has followed that line saying June and July should not necessarily be sacrosanct.
Infantino suggested in The Times newspaper that all World Cups should be played in the most suitable weather conditions in the host country.
That, ironically, is close to what FIFA approved at their recent Congress in Mauritius when, in changing the statutes to allow for the full membership to select host World Cup nations in the future, football's world governing body said venues should be chosen according to "the best possible hosting conditions" rather than their particular geographical location.
"Whenever you play the World Cup should be the best period for it," he said. "I had the same reflections on South Africa in 2010. Four years earlier in Germany it was nice sunshine. South Africa is a beautiful country, but at five o'clock, it's night and it's 0C. It's not a celebration of football."
"The month of June, which is the most beautiful month to play football, is hardly ever used except for the Euros and the World Cup. But the World Cup is played only every 12 years, more or less, in Europe.
"I fully share this view that you have to play in the best period for football; that is not June or July in Qatar. This is an issue that FIFA has to sort out. The sooner they do it, the better. The decision for 2022 was taken in 2010, so in 12 years you can organise yourself."
How much faith do you have in FIFA? Can we as fans really believe football's overlords are in it for the good of the game? Now the 63rd Annual FIFA Congress has been and gone - how much has really changed?
German journalist Florian Bauer told me this week, "Personally I wouldn't call it a reform process, because then you would ask where are the reforms?" He feels that while FIFA has said the right things on the surface, in reality little has changed. "They haven't even heard the proposals of their own advisers - the Independent Governance Committeee (the IGC). You're paying people, the IGC, to be advisers - then they're proposing things, but you are not acknowledging them. This was meant to be a reform Congress - the end of a reform process - now FIFA has changed its mind."
FIFA reminded us courtesy of a natty graphic that the glass of reform is more half full than half empty in terms of what's been done. And it is true that there have been changes to the World Cup voting system, new integrity checks implemented, and a new code of ethics for the committee. 429243
While FIFA is based in Zurich, UEFA has its headquarters in Nyon close to Geneva, the International Olympic Committee - marred by the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics scandal - is based in Lausanne and the International Cycling Union, whose sport is plagued by doping cases, in Aigle.
"Switzerland is among the countries least affected by corruption and has effective legislation in this regard," said a government statement.
"But suspicions of corruption in the awarding of the hosting of major sporting events have revealed the weaknesses which exist in the field of private corruption."
The Swiss government has now commissioned a report into the problem and has opened a public consultation, with a September 5 deadline for comments, into a suggestion that corruption in private organisations should be considered an offence under the penal code.
"This situation has been increasingly discussed in view of the constant events of corruption observed in the international sporting federations," the statement continued.
"Because of this, private corruption should be regulated within the penal code and should no longer depend on a situation of concurrence.
"For example, acts of corruption committed in the awarding of the organisation of big sporting events should be punishable." ............................................................................................
Swiss Government
"Switzerland is among the countries least affected by corruption and has effective legislation in this regard," said a government statement.
"acts of corruption... should be punishable."
And it only has taken 25+ years for the Swiss lawmakers to come to this complicated conclusion.
CURITIBA, Brazil -- The head of a newspaper renowned for reporting on crime and corruption was shot to death Tuesday in a town outside Rio de Janeiro, the latest in a string of apparent assassinations of Brazilian journalists.
Jose Roberto Ornelas de Lemos, 45, was shot 44 times by four men while he was drinking at a neighborhood bar in the town of Nova Iguacu, witnesses said, and police believe the motive may have been to silence the reporting done by his newspaper, Hora H.
Earlier this year, journalists Walgney Assis Carvalho and Rodrigo Neto, known for reporting on police corruption at the Vale do Aço newspaper, were gunned down in separate attacks in the state of Minas Gerais.
In February, radio host Mafaldo Bezerra Goes, 61, was killed in Jaguaribe, Ceara, in a crime suspected to have been carried out by drug traffickers.
Last year, crime reporter Andre Camarante at Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil's largest-circulation newspaper, fled the country after receiving threats based on his work. Reporters Without Borders charged that former Sao Paulo police chief Adriano Lopes Lucinda Telhada had exposed Camarante to danger through comments posted on his Facebook page.
If police suspicions are correct, this would be the fifth slaying of a journalist this year with an apparent link between the crime and the victim's work, according to the international organization Reporters Without Borders.
The attack on Lemos was a cowardly "attempt to stop that man's daily work against violence and corruption," said a statement posted on the Hora H website Thursday. "They silenced one voice, but they didn't silence the choir."
...it is also in this heartland of Brazilian and world football that you can feel the greatest unease about the changes being wrought before next year's World Cup finals. Violence, corruption, gentrification and the poor form of the national team have eroded confidence in Brazilian football, which is undergoing a painfully accelerated transition as a result of next year's tournament. Attendances are down, violence is rampant, and the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) is fending off allegations of corruption, secrecy and mismanagement of the preparations for 2014.
Before the 2002 World Cup, the British embassy in Tokyo organised public talks to ease Japanese fears about English football hooligans. In Brazil, such an operation would be redundant because violence in stadiums here is far deadlier than anything in the UK.
Largely as a result of clashes between armed organizadas (supporters groups), there have been more than 150 killings in football since 1988. At Santa Cruz a fan was shot three months ago and fell into a coma. By one estimate, the death count in Brazil is now the highest in the world.
"More than 100 years after the abolition of slavery, I see the World Cup as a means of integrating society. It is training people to raise standards. Brazil will show its best side to the world," said Sylvio Ferreira, a former player-turned-psychology professor who heads the Santa Cruz advisory council.
"But it is also true that the World Cup is not for the lower class, it is for the middle class. That is the global trend. It's very cruel."
at least 60,000 protesters gathered in São Paulo city and coordinated protests took place in another 10 Brazilian [pt] state capitals on June 17, 2013, as part of the fifth [pt] demonstration called by the Free Fare Movement São Paulo, a group that opposes rising bus fares in Brazil.
It is important to remember, in fact, that, historically, in many cities across the country, municipal bus consortiums act like cartels, misappropriate resources, politically control town halls etc ….
It is wrong to thinks that people are on the streets of São Paulo to protest 20 cents. People are on the streets today to say something very similar to what the population of Istanbul in Taksim is crying out for : they're talking about the rights of the city, the right to speak out about decisions related to where they live…
The municipal bus sector is made of a small group of antiquated entrepreneurs used to engaging in lowly municipal politics, an alliance that dates back to the 1940s.
If the Free Pass Movement really wants a better solution for this industry, the way is to end with this outdated collusion between mayors, municipal chambers and bus business people. This is what is behind the scenes, that's why the industry doesn't evolve [or improve], it uses bus with lorry bodies, bad service, exploits drivers and collectors, and has bad maintenance [standards].
Blatter added that “people are using the platform of football and the international media presence to make certain demonstrations. You will see today is the third day of the competition this will calm down. It will be a wonderful competition.”
Valcke told a conference at the Confederations Cup “the current president is very good. Why should he not run again? Why should he not remain as the FIFA president? I mean, he’s doing a great job.”
A leaked letter in which IMF chief Christine Lagarde pledges her allegiance to former president Nicolas Sarkozy has caused bewilderment in France, raising further suspicions over fraud at the highest levels of government. 433050
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