The 12-page report aimed to save football’s governing body, FIFA, in its moment of existential crisis.
Filled with reform proposals and drawn up by more than a dozen soccer insiders in December 2015, the report was FIFA’s best chance to show its business partners, American researchers and billions of fans that it could be restored. trust her after one of the biggest corruption scandals in sport. history.
In bullet points and numbered sections, the report advocated altruistic ideas such as responsibility and humility. He also proposed concrete and, for FIFA, revolutionary changes: transparency in how important decisions were made; term limits for top leaders and new limits on presidential power; and the abolition of well-funded committees, widely regarded as a system of institutional corruption.
And there, on the last page of the report, at the bottom a list of its authors, was the name of the man who positions himself as the savior of FIFA: Gianni Infantino.
Infantino, administrator of European soccer’s governing body, had been hired to help outline the reforms. When they were announced, he was already a candidate for FIFA president. Presenting himself as a clear break with the past, he took office a few months later and quickly began implementing many of the changes. The sport’s six regional confederations also promised to improve their actions.
Less than a decade later, football’s appetite for reform appears to have waned. An external audit of African soccer’s governing body, commissioned after FIFA took control of the organization, suggested tens of millions of dollars in misappropriated funds. Governing bodies in Europe and North and Central America have walked away from reforms or completely ignored promised ones, according to a comparison of public promises and concrete actions. The Asian Football Confederation will vote this week on whether to remove term limits for its senior leaders.
And on Friday in Bangkok, Infantino and FIFA will ask its members to approve a series of changes to its statutes that would further reverse changes it once adopted and restore structures it had sought to eliminate.
Critics argue that would distance football from the strong principles of good governance it adopted amid the scandal. “FIFA,” the organization said in response, “does not agree with this sentiment at all.”
Mixed signals
FIFA as an institution, as well as Infantino personally, frequently invokes powerful support for its reforms whenever questions about corporate probity arise. While Infantino rarely gives interviews, FIFA said in response to questions about undoing reforms that changes made since the 2015 scandals have transformed it “from a toxic institution to a respected, trusted and modern governing body.”
That shift toward a governance model, he said, has been “recognized by several outside organizations, including the United States Department of Justice.”
But U.S. officials said last week they had never reviewed FIFA’s governance rules or standards, and the prosecutor’s office that brought many of the corruption cases refused to back the federation’s changes.
“Our office has not endorsed the effectiveness of any of FIFA’s current reform efforts,” said John Marzulli, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
FIFA, along with two of its regional confederations, was given victim status by the Justice Department, reflecting the conclusion that it had been harmed by its own leaders. That designation could allow him to recover tens of millions of dollars seized from defendants in the case.
But in a sign of the Justice Department’s reluctance to back FIFA’s claims of being a changed institution, U.S. officials refused to pay $201 million in restitution funds it had awarded directly to FIFA or its related federations. . Instead, they took the unusual step of demanding the creation of a US-based foundation to receive the profits.
At the same time, FIFA has taken steps to amend the statutes revised after the scandal. In the 2015 study, for example, Infantino and other report authors called for the dismantling of a bloated committee system that for years had been one of FIFA’s worst excesses: a sponsorship allocation program in which FIFA officials football from all over the world could enjoy. luxury air travel, five-star accommodation and high annual salaries, all at FIFA’s expense, in exchange for their loyalty and votes.
At that time, FIFA had 26 permanent committees of this type. The 2015 report recommended a reduction to nine “to improve efficiency.” Currently, there are only seven.
But as part of proposed rule changes being considered this week in Bangkok, Infantino will ask members to approve a five-fold increase, to 35 panels, as well as the power to create new ones (and appoint members) when he wants. consider convenient.
FIFA said it needed additional committees because it had significantly expanded its functions and suggested the roles would create more positions for women. Some meetings, she said, would be held by teleconference. She did not say how committee members would be chosen, but there is already interest in the roles.
A sports official, who works for another major sports body but has served on FIFA committees in the past, smiled when told of his restoration. He asked not to be identified because he still has a relationship with the organization. But he said he hoped he would be offered a position, as benefits have traditionally included access to prized World Cup tickets.
changing tides
In region after region, promises of change have already been diluted. This week’s vote by the Asian Football Confederation to abolish term limits will allow its president and board members to remain indefinitely. (The AFC said four of its member federations had requested the change.) An effort by European soccer’s president to stay beyond his 12-year term limit was approved, but became meaningless when he said he would not run. (He said that he had not planned to extend his term, but he wanted to test the members’ loyalty.) And North American soccer body Concacaf, which was nearly brought down by the 2015 corruption scandal, has failed to deliver on promised changes, such as hiring. Independent directors. (He did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.)
At the same time, cultures of well-paid sinecures and all-powerful presidents have been somewhat enhanced. Members of FIFA’s top board earn between $250,000 and $350,000 a year for a job that may require attendance at as few as three meetings a year. Infantino has seen his salary more than double since taking office, to nearly $5 million, and recently oversaw a term limits tweak (specific to him) that could allow him to stay in his job for 15 years instead of 12. assigned in the FIFA statutes.
Miguel Maduro, the first FIFA head of government appointed by Infantino after his election, blamed the organization’s culture for the return to old ways. “It’s not enough to cut down a few bad apples,” he said, “if the trees that produced them remain in place.”
Maduro, who left office in 2017, called the weakening of security barriers “a formalization of the move away from reforms.” He called the latest changes “confirmation” of a process that has been carried out informally for years.
As Infantino consolidated his position, he simultaneously reversed changes intended to reduce the influence of his position. Under the proposed reforms, the president would become an “ambassador” for the sport and greater authority would be transferred to FIFA’s top administrator, the secretary general, a position that was reshaped to more closely resemble that of chief executive.
However, for most of Infantino’s term, his handpicked secretary-general, Fatma Samoura, was rarely involved in major issues. Instead, the most important decisions became increasingly consolidated in fewer hands and controlled by a group known as the office.
In meetings held behind closed doors, the members of the office (the six regional football presidents and Infantino) have negotiated the main events among themselves. In October they presented to the FIFA Council a plan that reduced the candidates for the 2030 Men’s World Cup to a single option, a tricontinental bid that will take place in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, in addition to Morocco, Portugal and Spain.
That election, by limiting the field of candidates for the next World Cup to only those from Asia and Oceania, effectively awarded the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia before bidding began. Within 24 hours, he had secured the backing of both the Asian football confederation and Infantino.
FIFA members must still vote to confirm the hosts of the 2030 and 2034 events. But with only one candidate bidding for each tournament and Infantino’s preferred outcome clear, those votes appear to be a fait accompli.
And with Ms Samoura recently leaving FIFA, the diminution of her former position is also likely to be formalized in Bangkok. Under the new draft statutes, any reference to the secretary general’s performance as executive director of FIFA will be removed. Instead, the position, which previously reported to the board, will now also report directly to the president.