Why Sponsors Will Not Lead FIFA Reform

Back in November I discussed the promising news that one big FIFA sponsor, Emirates Airlines, was raising questions about FIFA's reform efforts. Emirates has done its due diligence and now, courtesy of Andrew Warshaw, senior vice president Boutro Boutros explains what was found:

"What I said before about renewal is that we needed to wait until we had studied whether our brand was damaged because it's a big investment. You cannot invest unless you do a proper evaluation. We have now done a market research test and so far it would seem there is no negative effect on our brand or people's perception of it, whatever FIFA has gone through."

In other words, according to Emirates, whatever FIFA is doing it is not adversely affecting the Emirates brand, so the company has no need to look into the reform effort any further.

The brand-first approach taken by Emirates is of course not unique and provides a fine illustration why corporate sponsors will not be the ones to lead reform of sports governance, in FIFA or anywhere else. 

Why We Watch: Table Tennis Edition

Me on FIFA Reform on WWDB AM-860 This Saturday

On Saturday I'll join David Larkin from @changefifa to discuss FIFA reform on WWDB-AM 860. The show is 3PM ET and can be heard online here. I expect to join the conversation at about 3:25 ET.

It should be fun, I hope you can listen in!

Merry Christmas: 86 Goals from Lionel Messi in 2012

Merry Christmas, Thanks for reading!

Testimony of Jens Sejer Andersen before the EU Parliament

Above is the testimony given earlier this week by Jens Sejer Andersen, International Director, Play the Game and the Danish Institute for Sports Studies before the European Parliament. It is worth watching (or reading, PDF here) in full, as it provides an eloquent statement of the challenges and opportunities for improved sports governance.

Here is the advice Andersen gave to the EU policy makers:

It is high time for you to as politicians to react to what is happening in sport. Let me point to some actions you can take without compromising the autonomy of sport:

1) It is your right and duty to protect tax-payers' money. Sport is receiving massive public subsidies at all levels, from support to grass-root activities and local sports facilities, to investment in bidding campaigns for big events, grants to Olympic athletes, elite sport structures etc. Governments and other public authorities are entitled to set the necessary conditions to ensure not only that these grants are used exclusively for their purpose, but also that the beneficiaries live up to certain standards for democracy and transparency.

2) At the European level, you can uphold a permanent pressure on the European and international sports organisations, demanding that the ISL affair, the World Cup bribery allegations, the volleyball scandal and other major affairs are fully investigated, errors corrected and cases of possible criminal conduct taken to the courts.

3) You can define standards of governance for those sports organisations which seek formal cooperation with the European Union. Such work has already begun in the framework of the Expert Group of Good Governance in Sport established by the Council of Ministers, as well as in a number the Preparatory Actions financed by the Commission. One of these actions is run by Play the Game and the Danish Institute for Sports Studies and entitled Action for Good Governance in International Sports Organisations, in cooperation with six European universities and the European Journalism Centre. We will present an open tool to measure standards of governance in sport in April, and we invite you to join the launch event.

4) Another way of taking the debate forward could be to arrange a European or – even better – an international conference on all forms of corruption in sport. This call was sent to the IOC from 300 sports experts at the Play the Game conference in 2011 in Cologne, but so far the IOC has not listened.

5) You can insist on the issue of better governance in sport on at least two events in 2013, UNESCO’s fifth conference for sports ministers, Mineps V, in Berlin in May and our own Play the Game 2013 conference in the autumn.

6) Last, but not least, I suggest Europe should take the lead in creating an international clearing house on governance in sport, an institution that will permanently monitor and provide information exchange on how to prevent all kinds of corruption in sport.

Andersen's full testimony can be found here in PDF and here at Play the Game.

FIFA Reform Split: Pieth Appeals to the Council of Europe

With the FIFA reform effort essentially over, it seems inevitable that there will be some fracturing of solidarity between FIFA and those which it empaneled to advise the organization on reform. A first sign of a split has emerged today with the AP reporting that Mark Pieth, chairman of the FIFA Independent Governance Committee, has appealed to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to assist in motivating FIFA reform. Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, was none too happy when Pieth was critical of the reform effort back in October, and he probably won't like this action either.

The AP reports:

An anti-corruption panel advising FIFA wants a European lawmakers' group to press for "urgent" reform at football's world governing body when it meets on Wednesday.

FIFA adviser Mark Pieth's request for support from the 47-nation Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) hints at obstacles ahead of completing promised anti-corruption and transparency reforms by next May.

"It would be most welcome if the committee of the Council of Europe could add its voice to those demanding urgent change," Pieth wrote in a Dec. 3 submission seen by The Associated Press.

Pieth wrote that his group, including lawyers, anti-bribery experts and football officials, have already faced opposition since they began in January advising FIFA's ruling executive committee — and challenging its authority.

"Currently there is some resistance to even such key suggestions, including from European associations," the Swiss law professor told the PACE committee dealing with sports issues.

The meeting being refereed to is a hearing which I discussed here last week, noting the absence of Pieth on the panel. 

Pieth continues to escalate his criticism of FIFA, perhaps recognizing that the reform effort's legacy is tied up with his own. With reform apparently ending soon and with little accomplished, it would be completely understandable if Pieth wants to ensure that the blame for the stunted effort does not get placed on him.

In the submission to PACE he writes, according to the AP:

Pieth has been frustrated by Blatter's executive colleagues blocking his "fundamental suggestion" that audit chairman Domenico Scala should join them as an independent member. Instead, they allowed him just to observe during discussion of financial issues.

"A deviation from this compromise is unacceptable," lawmakers have been told by Pieth.

It is not clear what "unacceptable" might actually mean in practice, however, the strong language suggests that Pieth is transforming from a supportive facilitator to a frustrated critic. I would guess that we will hear more along these lines from Prof. Pieth.

Bizarre Ending to FIFA vs. bin Hammam

So the long-running battle between FIFA and Mohammed bin Hammam has apparently come to and end. In a statement released today FIFA says that bin Hammam has been banned from football for life, a judgment that -- apparently -- he appears ready to accept.

The judgment is absolutely bizarre because bin Hammam's ban is apparently based on the application of ethics provisions passed in 2012 to his actions conducted 2005-2011. The application of current standards to sanction past behavior was judged illegitimate by Sepp Blatter when he defended FIFA in the ISL affair, explaining that FIFA's kickbacks/bribes in that scandal were not then illegal under Swiss law.

Also bizarre is that fact that bin Hammam would, on the surface, appear to have a tailor made case for appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where he already won a judgment against FIFA for its appaling lack of due process. Why he is not appealing speaks to the likelihood of skeletons in the closet or some other sort of incentive not readily apparent .

Here is the FIFA statement in full:

Mr Mohamed Bin Hammam, FIFA Executive Committee member and AFC President, has resigned from all his positions in football with immediate effect and will never be active in organised football again. This results from a resignation letter of Mr Bin Hammam addressed to FIFA and AFC dated on 15 December 2012.

In view of the fact that under the new FIFA Code of Ethics, the FIFA Ethics Committee remains competent to render a decision even if a person resigns, the Adjudicatory Chamber decided to ban Mohamed Bin Hammam from all football-related activity for life.

This life ban is based on the final report of Michael J. Garcia, Chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee. That report showed repeated violations of Article 19 (Conflict of Interest) of the FIFA Code of Ethics, edition 2012, of Mohamed Bin Hammam during his terms as AFC President and as member of the FIFA Executive Committee in the years 2008 to 2011, which justified a life-long ban from all football related activity.

What FIFA has not released includes:

• The specific charges against bin Hammam
• The evidence against him
• Michael Garcia's final report

There is obviously much here outside the public view. The only thing that is perfectly clear is that FIFA has a long way to go on issues of due process and transparency. FIFA's actions on bin Hammam indicate that not much has changed in how FIFA does its business.

The Way FIFA Reform Ends

Kier Radnege reports from Tokyo that FIFA has laid out the remaining steps in its reform process. The work of the IGC and its chair Mark Pieth is apparently over:

All final decisions on the details of FIFA’s reform process will be decided by world football insiders; the work and influence of governance expert Mark Pieth is at an end writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

This is FIFA’s destiny after the governing executive committee, in Tokyo today, heard an update on the process from German exco member Theo Zwanziger.

The former German federation president heads a working group set up by the exco in September to consult the 209 member associations on reform proposals.

How much influence individual FAs may have is questionable; the group comprises ‘only’ the general secretaries and legal directors of the six regional confederations.

Reform advocates, critical of FIFA’s failure to match the pace promised by president Sepp Blatter at the 2011 Congress, will be concerned that assessment of the most delicate issues will be left to a small group of senior figures.

Zwanziger is among those scheduled to testify before the Council of Europe next week on FIFA governance issues. Hopefully he will address the state of reform and the CoE will follow up his testimony with some inform questions.

Earlier this year I assembled a mid-term "report card" on FIFA's reform effort. It is not looking like FIFA has done much to raise their final grades, and time is running out.

FIFA Clears bin Hammam of Bribery Charges

In a stunning reversal, the new FIFA Ethics Committee has dropped its investigation of Mohammed bin Hammam's alleged role in bribing Caribbean Football Officials while campaigning for the FIFA presidency in 2011.

The Guardian quotes from Michael Garcia's (FIFA new independent investigator) internal report:

Garcia's decision to close the investigation in to the Caribbean allegations is contained in his confidential report to Fifa. It states: "This investigation focused on events that took place at the CFU meeting in Trinidad and Tobago in May 2011.

"With respect to the events at the CFU conference, the investigation uncovered no new material proof beyond the substantial evidence presented during the proceedings that culminated with the CAS [Court of Arbitration for Sport] decision vacating Mr Bin Hammam's ban.

"Accordingly, the Investigatory Chamber has closed this matter consistent with the CAS Panel's guidance regarding newly discovered evidence."

Back in July I discussed the CAS bin Hammam decision in some depth.  CAS vacated the FIFA decision not because they judged bin Hammam to be innocent -- they actually suggested that he was probably guilty. Rather the CAS strongly rebuked FIFA, noting that it was FIFA's own actions and unwillingness to carry on a proper investigation that led to the weak case that it brought before the CAS (PDF):

FIFA disabled itself from pursuing a proper, thorough and complete investigation of Mr. Bin Hammam’s role in the matters that give rise to these proceedings. In effect, the paucity of the evidence is connected to FIFA’s own decisions.

Specifically, CAS alleged that FIFA prematurely terminated an investigation into the role of Jack Warner in the affair and Sepp Blatter, FIFA President, refused to participate. CAS explained:

[T]here was apparently no requirement to close those FIFA Ethics Committee procedures, as it is plain to it that FIFA would continue to be able to exercise jurisdiction over acts occurring whilst Mr. Warner was a FIFA official. Mr. Warner is at the heart of the events of May 10 and 11, and there is every possibility that if the FIFA investigations of Mr. Warner had continued at least some of the missing facts that have hampered the work of this Panel – facts that go to the heart of the gaps in the events - might have been clearly established, one way or the other. . . the Panel notes that Mr. Blatter declined to answer its questions concerning the circumstances of Mr. Warner’s resignation and the termination of disciplinary proceedings against him, as well as the relationship between these two events.

FIFA's decision to drop further investigation of bin Hammam in effect clears him of the charges of bribery against him. This despite the fact that the CAS judged bin Hammam to likely be guilty of those charges.

This outcome raises the question of whether bin Hammam is due any compensation from FIFA or if FIFA should suffer any sanctions as he was in effect railroaded out of the FIFA presidential election and suspended from football based on claims that FIFA now says that it cannot substantiate according to the due process standards of the CAS. The main beneficiary of FIFA's ineptitude (to be generous) was Sepp Blatter, who ran unopposed for the FIFA presidency once bin Hammam was out of the way. This outcome is a big black eye for the new FIFA investigative capability, and suggests that in practice little has changed in the organization.

FIFA continues to suspend bin Hammam under separate charges of financial mismanagement of the Asian Football Conference during his presidency -- allegations which came to light after the 2011 FIFA presidential election. No doubt, fresh off his surprising victory on the bribery charges, we can expect bin Hammam to fight these charges as well. Who can predict what will happen next? Stay tuned.

Bad Optics

USA Today reports that University of Wisconsin athletic director, and legendary former coach, Barry Alvarez will receive a $118,500 bonus on top of his "normal" $85,000 per month salary to coach the Badgers football team in the Rose Bowl. The President of the UW Board of Regents explained:

"We weighed the factors involved, including the unique circumstances that developed less than a month before the game, the challenges of the job, the marketplace and his strength as a coach and concluded that this is a reasonable arrangement"

 The key word there is of course "marketplace."

How do UW-M faculty stack up?

The annual salaries in 2011-2012 of UW-M faculty are:

• Full professor - $114,700
• Associate professor - $87,400
• Assistant professor - $75,900 

Alvarez's one-month extra pay is more than the average full professor makes in a year, and Alvarez already makes about the same per month as the average associate professor makes in a year.

One local observer put the situation into perspective:

Alvarez announced that he, the old coach with bad knees, would hobble off the bench and coach these young men in the biggest game of their lives. He's coached in the Rose Bowl before, winning three of them.

You could hear the sigh of relief from Badgers nation. Barry to the rescue. Bucky was smiling.

So far so good, and then Alvarez, smiling wide, took the step that carried him right into the muck of the biggest mud hole around.

He met with the UW Athletic Board and afterward said, "I'm not doing it for free. I'm getting paid 1/12th of the coach's salary, which is fair."

Greed, inequity, special treatment, lack of proportion. Did someone say "college football"?

How Can FIFA be Held Accountable?

I have just put the finishing touches on the revision to my paper, "How Can FIFA be Held Accountable?". It comes in at 10,300+ words, and there was a lot left unsaid. The paper was about 18 months in preparation and benefited from many helpful comments, including detailed comments from 2 reviewers, making me very impressed with SMR.

The paper will soon appear in the peer-reviewed journal Sport Management Review. Here is the abstract:

Abstract. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, is a non-governmental organization located in Switzerland that is responsible for overseeing the quadrennial World Cup football (soccer) competition in addition to its jurisdiction over other various international competitions and aspects of international football. The organization, long accused of corruption, has in recent years been increasing criticized by observers and stakeholders for its lack of transparency and accountability. In 2011 FIFA initiated a governance reform process which will come to a close in May, 2013. This paper draws on literature in the field of international relations to ask and answer the question: how can FIFA be held accountable? The paper’s review finds that the answer to this question is “not easily.” The experience in reforming the International Olympic Committee (IOC) more than a decade ago provides one model for how reform might occur in FIFA. However, any effective reform will require the successful and simultaneous application of multiple mechanisms of accountability. The FIFA case study has broader implications for understanding mechanisms of accountability more generally, especially as related to international non-governmental organizations.

I am happy to share a pre-page proof copy with anyone who is interested -- just drop me an email. If you have seen an earlier version there are some small changes and the paper has been brought up-to-date. But the bottom line remains the same. In answer to the question posed by the title, the answer is:

Not easily.

Council of Europe to Hold Hearing on FIFA Governance

UPDATE: 19 Dec, the CoE released a short press release on the hearing, in which it quoted Gvozdzen Flego (Croatia, SOC), Chair of the PACE Culture Committee: "We are committed to encouraging the reforms which should give this world body the transparency and sense of responsibility that it lacks."

The Council of Europe has scheduled a hearing on the governance of FIFA as a follow-up to its recent report and Resolution on "Good governance and ethics in sport."  Here is the full agenda as found on the CoE website (PDF):

Wednesday 19 December 2012, 9am - 12.30pm, Office of the Council of Europe

7. Follow-up to Resolution 1875 (2012) on Good governance and ethics in sport
[AS/Cult/Inf (2012) 12] - Programme of Hearing
Hearing on “FIFA governance” with the participation of:

• Mohammad Bin Hammam, President of the Asian Football Confederation
• Jérôme Champagne, former FIFA Deputy Secretary General
• Jean-Loup Chappelet, Professor and Dean at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration,(IDHEAP), Lausanne
• Sylvia Schenk, Transparency International
• Lord David Triesman, former Chairman of the English Football Association
• Theo Zwanziger, member of the FIFA Executive Committee

Of note is that the list is comprised of those calling for reform of FIFA in one way or another, including several very vocal critics. Interestingly, no one from the FIFA IGC is testifying, which may or may not be a significant omission (FIFA IGC chair Mark Pieth was identified as a possible participant in this hearing by the CoE in October -- PDF -- for whatever reason there will be no IGC representation)..

The Council has itself recently been very hard on FIFA. In a rejoinder to a FIFA response to its report on good governance, the Council did not mince words:

• Mr Blatter is the President of FIFA, but he is not FIFA and he should not confuse what is in his own interest with what is in the interest of the organisation he is supposed to serve.
• Asking FIFA to improve its governance, the transparency of its accounts and to take steps to shed light on the scandals which tarnish its image is hardly interference; it is just common sense.
• Lastly, the independence of sport – to which we remain committed – should not become a defence for those who abuse their authority. It is wrong to have accusations without proof, but it is our duty to ask for the truth to be sought and established.

Hopefully the hearing will include written testimony that is made public. If so, I'll be sure to discuss here. Stay tuned.

Mark Pieth Again Criticizes FIFA and Swiss Government

On the heals of yesterday's largely positive assessment of FIFA reform by Michael Hershman, a member of FIFA's Independent Governance Committee, today Mark Pieth, FIFA IGC Chair offers a much less optimistic assessment in an interview with SwissInfo.ch.  Here are a few key excerpts.

On FIFA's willingness to adopt conventional standards of corporate governance:

The real challenge is that some of the executive committee people are not elected by congress but by the confederations and then sent to serve on that committee. The challenge is whether we will be able to force the institution to do due diligence on these people – this is something they do in every major multinational firm.

We also believe there needs to be a stronger element of independence in the executive committee, like on a company board you have independent directors; this is a huge step for them.

That’s where we are really struggling at the moment. They are basically making the argument that if you were a government would you want external people to sit in. They see themselves more as a government than as a multinational corporation.

On the Swiss government's appetite for supporting reform:

In the past I’ve always dealt with organisations which have been under some kind of state control or supervision. The difficulty here is that we are in absolute self-regulation, as so far the Swiss regulator – the Federal Sports Office really doesn’t deserve the name regulator – hasn’t done anything to regulate .

It’s only with this new report [on corruption and match-fixing] coming out that it’s starting to take its share of the responsibility.

The bottom line:

Taken together, all these sports organisations represent a substantial risk for Switzerland’s reputation.

FIFA IGC Plays Good Cop, Bad Cop?

Michael Hershman, member of FIFA's Independent Governance Committee, has given an interview to Play the Game, in which he gives a largely positive assessment of the progress being mae by the FIFA reform effort.  PTG writes:

Hershman, a corporate and governmental compliance expert with the Fairfax Group, told Play the Game that the signs so far have been encouraging since they outlined recommendations earlier this year: “There have been some major changes made in the governance procedures at FIFA, including the appointment of independent heads of the ethics committee and investigatory chamber,” he explains. “This is the first time I am aware of in the history of FIFA that independent parties have been brought in to head up such critical functions.”

Hershman cautions, as has the IGC more generally, that past corruption allegations have not been sufficiently investigated by FIFA, but is confident they will accept the recommendation to limit the terms of members of the executive committee, as well as of the President himself. With the new system of selecting World Cup hosts, which will involve every member nation rather than just those represented on the executive committee, Hershman believes “we will see a greater level of confidence in the future when these host countries are selected.”

Not long ago I interviewed Hershman here, and he made similar comments.

Hershman's largely positive comments contrast markedly with the more cynical and resigned comments made by Mark Pieth, IGC chair, at the EASM conference in Denmark in September. At the time I wrote:

Pieth repeatedly defended his role on the IGC, explaining that if you know anything about the challenges of politics, things are "five times worse" inside FIFA, with many interests and coalitions working to block reforms. He said that his experience in pressing for reforms has been that, "at some point there is a wall, and they tell me to go away."

Not it could be the case that Pieth and Hershman are playing a sophisticated game of good cop, bad cop with FIFA. When I interviewed Hershman he even suggested that Pieth's approach at EASM was part of a strategy of keeping pressure on FIFA. Maybe. On the other hand, if the Fairfax Group gets a big FIFA contract sometime after the IGC disbands, then we will know that there was another game going on. The IGC remains a curiosity.

The Least Thing in Indianomix

Vivek Dehejia, of Carleton University in Ottawa, and Rupa Subramanya, of the WSJ, have a new book coming out this week titled Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India” (Random House). In it they cite an analysis performed here on The Least Thing. Here is an excerpt from an excerpt, published in the WSJ:

From astrology to tarot, human history is littered with our attempts at better predicting the future. More recently, these include more scientific (or at least apparently so) methods like polls and expert predictions. Philip Tetlock, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is most famous for a 20-year study in which he tracked the predictions of hundreds of experts in many different fields spanning the range from business to international relations and then compared the actual outcomes to the predictions. He published his results in a landmark 2005 book called Expert Political Judgement: How Good Is It? How Can We Know. In the study, he found that the predictions of experts were no more accurate than if you’d just tossed a coin instead. In fact, sometimes tossing a coin would give you a better prediction than listening to an expert. As Tetlock colourfully puts it, even a monkey throwing darts at a dartboard would do better than most experts. You could probably do even better than the monkey, but that would be just by mechanically extrapolating a trend from today into the future. (The simplest form of extrapolation is what’s known in mathematics as ‘linear extrapolation’. Basically, if you have two points, you put a straight line through those points and make a prediction assuming that the next data point will also lie along that same straight line.)

There are innumerable examples of what Tetlock has in mind. Here’s one from March 2012. A much publicized paper by economics professor Dan Johnson of Colorado College and Ayfer Ali created a complicated statistical model with many variables to predict how countries would do in the medal tally of the winter and summer Olympic Games. They have a very large data set spanning games from 1952 to the present. The authors find some interesting correlations between variables, such as the intuitive ideas that rich countries win more medals than poor countries and that countries with snowy winters do better in the winter games. Where they falter is when they claim that their statistical model can provide ‘surprisingly accurate predictions’ of medal tallies in future games. But as Roger Pielke Jr, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, showed, the interesting correlations that Johnson and Ali found didn’t translate into good predictive power. In line with Tetlock’s research, Pielke showed that the naïve assumption that a country would win as many medals next time as last time performs better than the complicated statistical model.

The analysis that they refer to was published here last summer. Further background can be found here. If experts cannot offer skill in predicting sporting outcomes -- closed systems with simple rules, and small number of actors -- then the prospects for offering skillful predictions in more complicated settings are slim indeed.

Fortunately, we'll always have Paul.

UCI Armstrong Investigation off to an Impressive Start

The International Cycling Union has announced an investigation of its role in the Lance Armstrong affair. The NY Daily News reports:

The International Cycling Union has appointed a British judge, a British lawmaker and an Australian lawyer to investigate the role the sport’s governing body played in the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

UCI officials announced on Friday that judge Phillip Otton will chair the three-member panel that includes Tanni Grey-Thompson, a member of the upper chamber of Britain’s Parliament who has won 10 Paralympic gold medals in wheelchair racing, and attorney Malcolm Holmes. The panel is scheduled to meet in London for 17 days in April and issue a report by June 1.

“The appointment of these three eminent figures demonstrates clearly that the UCI wants to get to the bottom of the Lance Armstrong affair and put cycling back on the right track,” UCI President Pat McQuaid said in a statement.

UCI had asked Court of Arbitration for Sport board president John Coates to recommend candidates for the panel. McQuaid said the cycling federation had no part in choosing the three officials, who will determine the parameters of their investigation. The panel is expected to look into the relationships between Armstrong and McQuaid, who was elected UCI president in 2005, and his predecessor, Hein Verbruggen.

The panel (chaired by Sir Phillip Otton) and the investigation's terms of reference are both very strong, with a sweeping mandate. Here are the subjects of the investigation:

1. Whether the allegations against the UCI set out in the Reasoned Decision are well founded.

2. Whether, between 1998 and 2012, the UCI realised that Lance Armstrong and the USPS Team were collaborating to avoid detection in the use, possession, administration and trafficking of performance enhancing drugs and methods, and: (i) if the UCI did realise, whether it failed to respond appropriately; and (ii) if the UCI did not realise, whether it ought to have done so, and what steps (if any) it should have taken to inform itself of the actions of Lance Armstrong and the USPS Team in order to act appropriately.

3. Whether, and if so, to what extent the UCI’s anti-doping policies and procedures between (i) 1998 and 2005 and (ii) 2005 and 2012, were inadequate or were not enforced with sufficient rigour; and if so, whether the UCI was at the time aware, or ought to have been aware, of such inadequacy or lack of enforcement.

4. Whether there was, between 1998 and 2012, any reliable evidence or information in the possession of or known to the UCI regarding allegations or suspicions of doping by Lance Armstrong and the USPS Team; and if so, whether there was any failure by the UCI to act appropriately in regard to such information.

5. Whether, when Lance Armstrong returned to racing in 2009, there was a failure by the UCI to detect signs of doping by him, and whether it was appropriate for him to return to and continue racing.

6. Whether payments were made by Lance Armstrong and the USPS Team to the UCI, between 1998 and 2012, and if so whether it was appropriate for the UCI to have accepted such payments, or to have accepted them on the basis (explicit or implicit) upon which they were made.

7. Whether the UCI inappropriately discouraged those persons with knowledge of doping by Lance Armstrong and the USPS Team from coming forward with such knowledge, and whether the UCI should have done more to encourage such persons to come forward sooner.

8. Whether the UCI adequately co-operated with, assisted in and reacted to the USADA USPS Team Investigation.

9. Whether any persons previously convicted of doping, or voluntarily admitting to doping, or supporting riders in doping, should be able to work within the world of cycling in the future; and, if not, how such a prohibition could and should be enforced.

10. Whether the UCI had a conflict of interest between its roles in promoting the sport of cycling and in investigating or making adverse findings against Lance Armstrong and the USPS Team.

11. Whether the current doping controls of the UCI are adequate and compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and whether those controls can be improved.

The report is due June 1, 2013 and a hearing will be held in London in April. That really does not leave very much time for an investigation of this magnitude. There is, understandably, a lot of skepticism -- Paul Kimmage, an investigative journalist, has doubted the worth of the effort. 

However, if the investigation is anywhere as comprehensive and as sound as the USADA's "reasoned decision" then it stands a good chance of setting a very important precedent in the governance of sport, including the jurisprudential role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in such controversies that go beyond anything covered by national or international laws. Of course, if the investigation does not live up to these high expectations, the fallout will likely be severe.