FIFA Names Ethics Committee, Bribe Payments To Be Examined

FIFA's Executive Committee unanimously appointed American Michael Garcia and German Hans-Joachim Eckert as Chairs of its Ethics Committee. Garcia will lead the investigatory chamber while Eckert will head the adjudicatory chamber. The Exec Committee also unanimously adopted the new Code of Ethics, which will come into force on July 25. The new code follows the proposals made by the Task Force Ethics Committee and has been adapted to allow the separation of the Ethics Committee into two chambers with investigatory and judicial powers, as approved by the Congress in Budapest. The meeting also marked another important milestone as it was the first time that a woman, IOC member and Burundi FA President Lydia Nsekera, has attended a FIFA Exec Committee meeting. Additionally, CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb was appointed as new member of the FIFA Finance Committee and the FIFA Emergency Committee. Other appointments to the investigatory chamber are: Guam's Robert Torres, Australia's Les Murray, Barbados' Ronald Jones, Colombia's Jorge Iván Palacio, France's Noël Le Graët, Mauritania's Ahmed Ould Abderrahmane. Appointments to the adjudicatory chamber are Nambia's Petrus Damaseb, Uruguay's Juan Pedro Damiani, U.S.A's Burton Haimes, Senegal's Abdoulaye Mokhtar Diop, Papua New Guinea's Jack Kariko, Norway's Yngve Hallen and Vietnam's Thi My Dung Nguyen (UEFA).

BRIBES PROBED: BLOOMBERG's Tariq Panja reported that Blatter responded to a question about whether the new committee will probe the '10 decision to award the World Cup to Russia and Qatar, which came "ahead of a field" that included the U.S. and Australia. Blatter said, "We have to follow what they are going to find out whenever they are going to open the cases" (BLOOMBERG, 7/17). The BBC reported that the payment of millions of pounds in bribes to two FIFA officials is to be "examined by the organisation's new ethics committee." Joao Havelange and Ricardo Teixeira were named as "having received huge sums" by FIFA's former marketing partner ISL. Blatter tweeted, "On my request, ISL file will be given to the new ethics committee" (BBC, 7//17).