FIFA Scraps ExCo Bonuses

Bloomberg reported last week that FIFA has decided to terminate bonuses for its Executive Committee members:

Domenico Scala, appointed head of a new audit and compliance body in 2012, said executives agreed to scrap the bonuses after he argued that they created a risk of unethical behavior. FIFA, a not-for-profit organization, doesn’t publish compensation details. In its 2012 financial report FIFA said it paid $33.5 million to “key management personnel,” who included the executive board and finance committee.

“FIFA’s executive committee is an oversight and decision-making body, they are not responsible for sales,” Scala said in a telephone interview. “From a governance perspective we don’t want to provide a bonus to people overseeing the operations.”

How much were the bonuses? A 2011 report in Sports Illustrated said that in 2010, a World Cup year, they were 200,000 Euros ($281,000).

I used this info last summer as part of a guesstimate at Sepp Blatter's FIFA salary:

In 2010, if 24 Executive Committee member, minus Sepp Blatter, each made $281,720 then that totals $6,479,560, leaving about $28 million to be allocated among 10 management officials. The average is $2.8 million. If we assume that Sepp Blatter makes twice the average then that would place his salary at ~$6 million per year (or at least, in 2010).

To one significant digit, I'll offer that as a first best guess at Sepp Blatter's salary. Any takers on the over/under?

Now that FIFA is not paying bonuses to its ExCo it looks like it will have about $6.5 million extra dollars. I wonder if that means Blatter will get a raise. We won't know because FIFA does not release its salary information.