Exclusive: By Osasu Obayiuwana
March 15 – A recommendation that the new FIFA president and his executive committee members are both elected by its congress, an important part of the proposed reforms for world football’s governing body, may not be achieved by 2015, when the next presidential election is due, says Sepp Blatter.
“I am not sure that by 2015, [the] rules will be in place to ensure that the president and the executive committee members of FIFA will be elected by the same entity (the FIFA Congress), because we have not dealt with the first part of the reforms.
“We have only made a small step forward… I hope that by (after) 2015, such a rule would be in.
“What is important for me is that the man or woman that will succeed me, but I think that it will be a man, must have the same approach to the globality of football, as I have had, and as [Joao] Havelange (Blatter’s predecessor as president of FIFA) has had.
“We must ensure that football is not going backward and going [back] to the Confederations, which is the desire of some Europeans… I will fight to the end of my mandate and even beyond that, to maintain the authority of FIFA.”
In a previous interview with this reporter, at the London 2012 Olympics, Blatter claimed that anyone in the position of the FIFA presidency would have serious difficulties in effectively leading the body, without changing the basis of electoral legitimacy for members of the 25-man executive committee.
“They are elected by their confederations and they each have separate agendas. This makes it very difficult to bring them all under one roof,” Blatter said.
You can read Osasu Obayiuwana’s revealing one-hour interview with Sepp Blatter, at the 2012 Olympic games, here – http://footballisafrica.com/2012/09/the-blatter-interview-uncut/
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