OpEd -- Blatter Paints Himself as Reformer at World Ethics Summit

(ATR) Two weeks after FIFA’s chief investigator delivers his report on alleged ethical violations in the corruption-tainted World Cup bidding process, FIFA president Sepp Blatter will open the first World Summit on Ethics at the governing body’s headquarters.

Former United States attorney Michael Garcia is set to submit his report on possible ethics breaches and vote trading in the bid race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee in the first week of September. Garcia and FIFA’s ethics judge Hans Joachim-Eckert will also attend the ethics summit on September 19.

The parallel bidding process was widely considered farcical, opening the door to the potential for collusion between the nine bidding nations and bribery. Even Blatter, who faced allegations of buying votes to see off the challenge of Issa Hayatou in the 2002 FIFA presidential election, later admitted that running the 2018 and 2022 bidding races together was a big mistake.

As he seeks another four years at the helm of world football, Blatter will use the World Summit on Ethics like he exploits his speaking opportunities at the Soccerex Global Convention next month - to polish his credentials as a modernizer and reformer following the bribery and corruption scandals that tainted the World Cup bidding vote and, months later, the FIFA presidential election.

"Ethics and integrity are essential in the world of sport and are topics that have continued to gain importance for FIFA and the football community in recent years," said Blatter in a statement released Wednesday.

Reading that, many FIFA observers will find it hard to keep a straight face, in the wake of FIFA’s battered reputation over the past four years.

The line between what is ethical and what oversteps the mark in a bidding race can be a little blurred. But the series of bribery and corruption allegations leveled against a handful of FIFA ExCo officials in recent years, which brought down several of them including former CONCACAF leaders Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer, made crystal clear that FIFA had a big problem.

And Blatter hasn't helped himself - his remarks from November 2010 spring to mind, comments made ahead of the 2018/2022 secret ballot in December, after FIFA’s ethics committee banned ExCo members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii from football-related activities for three years and one year following an investigation into the cash-for-votes scandal.

Blatter saidat the time it was impossible to prevent collusion between bids in voting for the World Cup hosts. Making a mockery of FIFA's ethics committee decision to clear the Qatar and Spain-Portugal bids of vote trading due to insufficient evidence, the Swiss insisted he was not overly concerned about collusion, despite the fact it is prohibited in FIFA's bidding rules.

Pointing to the fact that all nine 2018/2022 bidders are represented on FIFA's ruling executive except Australia, he said: "It is obvious these people will speak together. You can't avoid collusion. But if in collusion there is something wrong, then naturally somebody would intervene." He made matters worse at a press conference following a meeting of the FIFA ExCo, when he said that collusion was a fact of life inside elections in sport and in politics.

FIFA has put in place better governance structures since 2010, but Blatter is a strange choice to open this ethics conference. It’s tempting to think that the campaign team attempting to get him re-elected as FIFA president next year played a major part in getting the summit off the ground.

Blatter will be keen to tell the world that FIFA has changed at the September conference that is organised by the Belgium-based public interest foundation "World Forum for Ethics in Business".

The event will see leading figures from sport, politics, business, academia and NGOs convening in Zurich talk about ethics issues and highlight examples of best practice.

"The summit will elaborate on what business and politics can learn from sports, showcase successful CSR activities in the sports arena and assess and address current challenges in sports ethics," the FIFA statement said.

"It will also feature a mix of inspiring keynote addresses from world-class speakers and dedicated breakout sessions to enrich participants overall knowledge and experience and propose a substantial agenda for action."

The World Summit on Ethics in Sports will also see the launch of the 2014 Ethics in Sports Awards, which will recognize an outstanding individual and organisation "that have demonstrated the importance of human values and ethics in life and in the sporting arena".

Written by Mark Bisson

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