Fifa reformation was the hot topic at the annual Securing Sport conference on Tuesday (3 November) which took place for the first time in the United States. The two-day event is hosted by the Doha-based International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS), a non-profit organisation aimed to improve sport safety, security and integrity.
Among the list of speakers and panellists was Francois Carrard, the head of the panel in charge of reforming the embattled football governing body plagued by corruption scandals since May. He said that his panel is pushing for strong leadership in order to achieve significant change.
You want at the top, you want strong leadership, why, because we think if you want to change the culture, from the top there must be new ways of conveying the messages, he said.
The messages that have to go all the way down to the bottom. And that is why we advocate strong leadership for, and we think that we are going to propose some structural reforms. We are still discussing them which could contribute to achieve this goal, the Chairman of 2016 Fifa reform committee added.
While the panel has to finalise the proposals Carrard said that there is consensus about the 12-year term limit for Fifa presidency. Our view is that good leadership in a world-wide organisation the total term limit should be 12 years, there is full agreement within our committee on that. This is based on a lot of experience, he said.
He also said that his panel is supportive of an age limit for top officials. We have all agreed that there should be an age limit for all offices. We placed it on 74, meaning based on the tradition that it is four year terms you dont run after 70, he explained.
Suspended Fifa head Sepp Blatter of Switzerland has been heading the organisation for nearly three decades.
