FIFA's Exec Committee, meeting for the first time under
newly elected President Sepp Blatter, agreed to hire a
consulting firm to study reorganization of its management
structure," according to a report in the Ft. Lauderdale SUN-
SENTINEL. Earlier in the day, FIFA's World Cup Organizing
Committee heard Chair Lennart Johansson declare the
tournament an "overwhelming success." Johansson said there
had been problems with ticket scandals and fan violence, but
he and Blatter said that the quality of play, atmosphere in
the stadiums and general organization made this a "memorable
World Cup in almost every respect." At the meeting, Blatter
stepped away "from one of the main planks of his campaign
platform" and withdrew his proposal to set up a full-time
executive board at the federation's headquarters in Zurich
(Ft. Lauderdale SUN-SENTINEL, 7/10). The FINANCIAL TIMES'
Sugden & Tomlinson wrote that FIFA's reform structures
reflect Blatter's "desire" to "consolidate his control over
key decisions" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 7/10).
WOMEN EYE '99: In N.Y., Stefan Fatsis writes on the
progress of the '99 Women's World Cup. Organizers hope to
sell 500,000 to 700,000 available tickets, making it "the
biggest women's-only sports event ever." The event "has
gotten some" corporate help -- from A-B and adidas --"to
spread the word" and Marla Messing, President of the Women's
World Cup Organizing Committee, met this week with Coca-Cola
regarding a possible marketing partnership. Claude Ruibal,
Coca-Cola's head of worldwide soccer said that while the
event "plays well" to the company's grass-roots interest, "I
doubt we'll do a national marketing program around Women's
World Cup" (Stefan Fatsis, WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/10).
NOTES: An estimated 24 million viewers in France
watched the conclusion of the France-Croatia match on
Wednesday. The population of France is about 60 million
(AP/Mult., 7/10)....An editorial in the MINNEAPOLIS STAR
TRIBUNE states, "You don't have to love soccer to appreciate
something extraordinary about ABC's broadcasts of the World
Cup," which air "without commercial interruption. Other
networks, too, should appreciate ABC's experiment and look
for ways to extend it to more sports broadcasts" (STAR
TRIBUNE, 7/10)....NEWSDAY's Steve Zipay gives a "red card"
to ESPN2 for its bottom-screen crawl showing the final score
of Tuesday's Brazil-Netherlands match during the tape-
delayed replay that night (NEWSDAY, 7/10).
