December 21, 2015

#NewFIFANow notes the decision of the FIFA Ethics Committee to ban the FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, and UEFA President, Michel Platini for eight years. 

We continue to advocate for truly independent reform of FIFA rather than this ‘death by a thousand cuts’. 

The indictments and guilty pleas in the US system, and the bans from FIFA’s own ethics committee, demonstrate a pattern of behaviour that is indicative of a flawed understanding of business ethics and a flawed cultural norm within world football.

It is these issues that need to be addressed for the long-term benefit of the sport.

This can only be done with any semblance of credibility if an eminent person with expertise in governance, structures and systems leads the way for world football.

We are now in the situation where more than half of the men who made the decision to award the FIFA World Cup to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 have been arrested, banned, suspended or pleaded guilty. 

Football fans will always love football, and always follow the World Cup. But it does not follow that this translates into respect for FIFA.

#NewFIFANow has consistently asked two questions. 

1.    How low can FIFA’s reputation go?

2.    And what does it take for FIFA’s stakeholders to get in line with the global fan community to demand independent time-limited reform led by an eminent person?

If the FIFA Congress and FIFA Executive acted in the best interests of the sport, and not their own role in the sport, and if the Swiss Government wants organisations operating within its territory to do so with the highest levels of probity, accountability and transparency, one further question remains. What is there to lose by agreeing to independent reform of world football led by an eminent person?

​ENDS