FIFA needs to end corruption: watchdog

BERLIN: FIFA needs an independent commission to end the “culture of corruption” destroying football’s world governing body, which is engulfed in a graft scandal, Transparency International said Wednesday.
The anti-corruption watchdog, which took part in an ineffective 2011 reform drive under embattled FIFA president Sepp Blatter, called for a far-reaching overhaul of the body to end the systematic corruption that has plagued it for years.
“FIFA has been shown the red card many times, yet it has failed to reform. It is a flawed democracy far removed from the fans that support the game,” Cobus de Swardt, managing director of the Berlin-based NGO, said in a statement.
“There has to be an independent reform commission and FIFA has to change. No more false dawns, no more scandals, no more dawn raids. FIFA has a debt to the fans and players to change now.”
The joint report with Avaaz, the International Trade Union Confederation and the NewFifaNow group entitled “Give Back the Game — How to Fix FIFA” called for more transparency.
It comes as US senators stepped up their scrutiny of FIFA over allegations of widespread corruption, and ahead of a meeting of football’s top body on Monday in Zurich that is expected to set the date to elect Blatter’s successor.
It also follows a resolution from the European Parliament last week that condemned the “systemic and despicable corruption” within FIFA.