FIFA's clean-up effort
July 17, 2012
As part of Blatter's promise to fight corruption at FIFA, he announced at a press conference on Tuesday that US attorney Michael J. Garcia would be the lead prosecutor on alleged cases of corruption at soccer's global governing body.
One of Garcia's pending tasks will be to conduct a further review of the ISL scandal. Last week, further details on long-public cases of bribery within FIFA in the 1990s came to light in a Swiss courtroom. Blatter's predecessor Joao Havelange, now FIFA's honorary president, and his former son-in-law Ricardo Teixeira were revealed as individuals who received millions from the football body's former marketing company International Sport and Leisure (ISL) - with Blatter knowing about at least one instance.
"[Garcia] will have the duty to have this case analyzed on ethic moral matters, and then to report back to the executive committee," Blatter said at the press conference.
Garcia and the new independent ethics committee have been given free reign to investigate what they choose and whom they choose. This could include looking into how FIFA's executive committee awarded the rights to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
German judge appointed
German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert was also appointed by Blatter on Tuesday. He is the presiding judge in the Munich District Court.
The 15-member ethics committee is to be split into two chambers. Garcia will lead the investigatory chamber and Eckert will lead the adjudicatory chamber.
"They can work as of the end of this month," Blatter said of the ethics committee. "The decisions of this committee, they will be accepted. Of that there is no doubt."
mz/ng (AP, dpa)