Decision time looms in politics of FIFA reform

The Associated Press, Geneva | Sports | Mon, March 18 2013, 8:51 PM

In a conclave at FIFA headquarters this week, a group of football leaders will work secretively over two days in their first session of 2013.

Presided over by President Sepp Blatter, the FIFA Executive Committee — with 23 men and one woman — is a group governing a sport followed in many countries with near-religious fervor.

Known in FIFA circles as the "ExCo," the group oversees a billion dollar annual income and $1.3 billion cash reserves thanks to the World Cup.

The ExCo members' influence was shown by the parade by princes, presidents and prime ministers who flocked to Zurich in December 2010 seeking votes for their country to be allowed to host a World Cup.

Members are also well paid, getting $280,000 in bonuses and expenses from part-time FIFA duties in the 2010 World Cup year, according to Mohamed bin Hammam in Sports Illustrated.

Yet that high status is balanced by the depths FIFA's reputation has sunk to among many football fans and commentators.

This week, one of the ExCo's main tasks is approving — or blocking — a slate of anti-corruption measures which the FIFA congress of 209 member nations will likely rubber-stamp on May 31 in Mauritius. The changes are designed to clean up a mess that some of its own members helped create by their involvement in a series of cash-for-votes scandals and favor-seeking allegations.

Many critics believe that in FIFA's world of mostly old men who are perceived as an entitled elite, the cardinal sin was to be caught in the act of wrongdoing, as if behaving badly was simply the way of doing business or an accepted perk.

Even Blatter has acknowledged that members did not believe the FIFA code of ethics applied to them.

So, on Thursday morning, the ExCo will address items No. 27 and 28 of 33 listed on its agenda, and discuss reforming and modernizing football's authorities: How they elect leaders; how to check candidates' integrity; how to prevent conflicts of interest; and how they allocate money.

And on Thursday afternoon, Blatter will emerge — not on a balcony but into a windowless auditorium inside a building worthy of a multinational corporation — for an audience with international media.