An Independent Voice on FIFA's IGC

When FIFA first appointed its "independent" good governance committee to advise the organization on reform( officially called the Independent Governance Committee) I pointed out that only 2 of the committee's original 10 members were clearly independent of FIFA. It is no surprise then that an unvarnished perspective on the reform effort is coming from one of those 2 members.

In the BBC today Alexandra Wrage gives another hard-hitting assessment of the state of FIFA reform (and she has been constant in demonstrating public leadership, such as here and here.) Here is a short excerpt of a much longer article:

She said: "I recognise that it's sensitive information but in the corporate world we got past that a decade or more ago. The stakeholders have the right to know, especially in an organisation awash with money as this one is, what senior executives are making.

"My concern was that we might win on salaries but not on the total compensation package. It was startling to me that we didn't even see salaries going forward."

Integrity checks are a similar disappointment for Wrage, a topic she feels Fifa has effectively "neutered".

The IGC had proposed centralised, independent vetting for newly elected Fifa executives.

But following resistance, led by European governing body Uefa, a watered-down version of the plan will be sent to congress with the six regional confederations taking responsibility for the process.

Wrage said: "The integrity checks will go forward but they have, in my opinion, been gutted.

"This is absolutely critical: centralised, neutral, independent integrity checks. All three of those components are really important. And now they are decentralised and largely self-reporting.

"[This is] really important for restoring Fifa's integrity - the reputation, fair or not, of people with inappropriate backgrounds making it into positions of authority. The fastest way to address that is robust, independent integrity checks."

With IGC chairman Mark Pieth effectively muzzled by Sepp Blatter, will anyone besides Wrage show public leadership on FIFA reform?