Where there is money, corruption often follows. Such is this case with Fifa, world football’s governing body. On Monday, the organisation’s ethics committee banned its president Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, one of its vice presidents, for eight years after it ruled that the two abused their positions over a 2 million Swiss franc (Dh7.3m) payment for consultancy work. Both bans are subject to appeal.
Fifa has been embroiled in a far-reaching corruption scandal since May that has involved US and Swiss authorities and exposed endemic corruption.
Up until senior Fifa officials were arrested hours before the body’s annual congress began seven months ago – a meeting that unanimously returned Blatter to office for a fifth consecutive term – few would have thought there was even a remote possibility that its president would now be facing an eight-year exclusion from all football-related activities.
While Monday’s announcement marks an important point on the road to reform, there is much work still to be done. Reforming from within, after all, has its limitations.
Fifa must start by publishing the full findings of its internal report pertaining to its findings on corruption. The organisation must come clean of its own volition about the nature of recent allegations. But there are other steps that must be considered, chief among them moving Fifa’s headquarters.
Since 2006, Fifa has been run from a sleek building in Zurich’s leafy District 7. Given the previous movement of funds, it would make sense to house Fifa in a country that could provide maximum oversight of financial transactions during this period of transition.
This is not to say that Fifa couldn’t return to Switzerland sometime in the future, but keeping the organisation under the harsh light of scrutiny will require that its headquarters be moved to a different jurisdiction. Corruption in sport is nothing new but that doesn’t mean the reform process is an easy one. The rehabilitation of Fifa will require several unorthodox but necessary steps.