An Update on FIFA's Swanky Watches

Last year FIFA officials were given some swanky £16,000 watches by the Brazilian Football Association. This was a kind gesture, of course, but according to FIFA, against it's ethics rules. So FIFA asked for its watches back.

Today FIFA announced that Greg Dyke, chairman of the English Football Association, has returned his gift watch and FIFA has thus dropped ethics charges against him.

Richard Conway of the BBC asked FIFA about the status of the other 64 watches, and reports back FIFA's reply above, via Twitter and reproduced here. FIFA is apparently "unable" to account for the other 64 watches. The statement comes from Cornel Borbely, FIFA's recently installed chief investigator, who replaced Michael Garcia who resigned in protest.

This would mean that FIFA is not in fact accounting for its request that the watches be returned and appears to have been pursuing an selective investigation of Dyke. FIFA could show that it takes such ethics violations seriously by simply accounting for the improper gifts, say by laying out the 65 watches on a table at a press conference.

Also, if Sepp Blatter has not returned his watch, under FIFA's rules, he would be ineligible to participate in the upcoming FIFA election.