IOC Ethics Chief Willing to Help FIFA

(ATR) Pâquerette Girard Zappelli tells a conference in Austria that the IOC’s ethics commission is working well – and ready to aid scandal-hit FIFA.

Appointed as the IOC’s chief ethics and compliance officer in April under Agenda 2020 reforms, Zappelli told the Camp Beckenbauer conference in Kitzbuhel Tuesday that the Olympic body’s ethics policies were "strong and robust."

She said there were "not so many questions" about the way the IOC commission was working since reforms were approved and the code of ethics revised, especially since the dark days following the Salt Lake bribery scandal in 1999. In the worst scandal in Olympic history, six members were expelled for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from officials linked to the 2002 Winter Olympic bid.

"We are always here to support any questions, any requests from the other sports organizations within the Olympic Movement," she said. "It is not only working for itself, closed. It is working open to the others."

Asked if international federations should do more in the area of ethics, she suggested most other federations were trying their best: "The problem is to apply and respect the law. That is why it is so difficult."

Amid the biggest corruption scandal in FIFA’s history, with top officials indicted on corruption charges, Sepp Blatter placed under criminal investigation and his number two Jerome Valcke suspended over a World Cup ticketing scandal, Zappelli said the IOC was on hand to support the embattled football governing body.

"We are welcoming all the initiatives and all the work which FIFA will do to regain its credibility because at the moment it is very difficult for FIFA," she said.

Blatter and FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon, who sat at FIFA’s top table for 17 years as an Asian vice president, deny allegations of wrongdoing but face possible ethics bans. Former IOC director general Francois Carrard is leading the 2016 FIFA Reforms Commission, which aims to deliver meaningful proposals by the time of the Feb. 26 elective congress in Zurich.

"We are here to support if they are willing for this," Zappelli told the conference.

"I have no doubt in the future they will find a way to regain their credibility. If they have to look at what the IOC did almost 20 years ago? Be very strong and act quickly."

Asked if it was too late for FIFA to rescue its scandal-battered image, she said, "No, it’s not too late."

Former FIFA presidential hopeful Jerome Champagne and German football legend Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who chairs the European Club Association, discussed FIFA reforms at the conference later on Tuesday.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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