Operation Happy Sponsor By FIFA

FIFA

Fifa and the companies concerned – Anheuser-Busch InBev, Adidas, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Visa – refused to comment about the meeting beyond confirming it had taken place.

However it is hard to imagine that secretary-general Jerome Valcke and legal director Marco Villiger would not have pointed to the launch of the revived reform process as supporting evidence.

In an oxymoronic statement issued after the meeting, Fifa said it had met "commercial affiliates . . . at the Home of Fifa to discuss current matters. During the meeting, FIFA reaffirmed its commitment to transparency, reform, and collaboration with its valued partners. No further comment will be made on the internal discussions between the parties."

The World Cup sponsors, concerned about the effect of fall-out from the Fifagate corruption scandal on their own images, had issued individual calls for president Sepp Blatter to be seen to be putting his house in order before he steps down next February 26.

Separately, on conveniently the same day, Carrard's office announced: "The first meeting of the 2016 FIFA Reform Committee will be held in the Swiss capital of Berne on September 2-3." It is understood Carrard chose Bern as a neutral venue since Fifa is based in Zurich and European federation UEFA at Nyon, near Geneva.

Fifa's reputation was tarnished by the and plummeted further over the respectively.

The executive committee's vote, in December 2010, was followed by further scandal in the run-up to the presidential election of 2011 which saw Blatter re-elected after , the Trinidadian who was then president of central and north American region [CONCACAF] and a FIFA vice-president.

A first attempt at reform was only partially effective. A strengthened ethics arm saw the suspensions and departures of a number of senior exco figures before on a US Justice Department indictment on May 27.

Two days later but under the weight of controversy with the Swiss judicial authorities launching their own inquiry into the awards of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and assisting the USDoJ in relation to suspected banking transactions.

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Nominations for the new presidential candidates must be submitted by October 26 with written support from at least five national associations. The only two 'heavyweights' to declare so far are Michel Platini, the French president of European federation UEFA, and Chung Mong-jong, the South Korean former Asian vice-president of FIFA.

** Bolivia justice authorities have raided the headquarters of the national football federation whose president, Carlos Chavez, is in detention on fraud charges, Chavez is treasurer of CONMEBOL, the South American confederation heavily implicated in the US Justice investigations.

Source:

http://www.worldsoccer.com