FIFA calls for solidarity to eradicate match-fixing

Chaired by FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter, the FIFA Executive Committee today completed a two-day meeting at the Home of FIFA in Zurich, where it called for the solidarity of the football community to help eradicate match-fixing from the game. “Almost 300 million people play football in the world. This extraordinary popularity gives us responsibilities. One of them – a major one – is to protect the integrity of the game. Match-fixing endangers exactly that. We’re already doing a lot – the early warning system, our partnership with INTERPOL, the creation of a FIFA Security Division, etc. – but, in addition to that, what is necessary is the solidarity of everyone involved in the game. In particular, whenever a match-fixing attempt is noticed, this has to be reported to the relevant bodies. This is crucial,” stressed the FIFA President. Regarding the Good Governance reform process and following the decisions taken by the 2012 FIFA Congress, the road map has been fine-tuned in order to complete the process at the 2013 FIFA Congress as initially planned. A working group, chaired by FIFA Executive Committee member and chairman of the Task Force Revision of Statutes Theo Zwanziger, and comprising the general secretaries as well as the legal directors of the confederations and FIFA, has been created to consult the 209 member associations and submit proposals regarding the revision of the FIFA Statutes. Concerning the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™, the executive ratified the kick-off times of the final tournament matches (see: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup) and changed the dates of the inter-confederation play-offs to 13 or 14 November 2013 (first leg: Asia v. South America and North and Central America and the Caribbean v. Oceania) and 20 November 2013 (second leg: South America v. Asia and Oceania v. North and Central America and the Caribbean) in order to give a longer rest period to the teams involved. The executive also decided to set the FIFA Confederations Cup Brazil 2013 prize money at USD 20 million, an increase of USD 2.4 million compared to the last edition in 2009. It also approved the Host Cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, which will be officially announced tomorrow in Moscow. Regarding FIFA’s member associations, the executive proposed the introduction to the FIFA Statutes of an obligation for member associations to hold periodical general assemblies (at least every two years) and to adopt their own statutes in conformity with the FIFA Standard Statutes. Furthermore, the following decisions have been taken: - Gambia: the mandate of the normalisation committee has been extended until 31 March 2013 - Sierra Leone: a normalisation committee will be nominated to run the daily business of the association, to redo the electoral process and to organise elections by 15 January 2013 - Maldives: the mandate of the current board has been extended until 31 January 2013 and an electoral committee will be nominated to organise the elections by 31 January 2013 Other matters: - Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK): the dossier will be finalised at the Executive Committee’s next meeting in Tokyo on 14 December. - FIFA competitions: o The executive underlined the success of the Olympic Football Tournaments London 2012, in particular in terms of attendance (approx. 2,2 million spectators), and of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Japan 2012. o The 2012 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, currently being played in Azerbaijan, was highlighted as being a positive example of how to use a FIFA event to create a legacy for women’s football o FIFA Club World Cup Morocco 2013: Marrakech and Agadir have been ratified as the two venues of the tournament o FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup: the executive was pleased to note that no less than 13 member associations are currently bidding to host the 2015 edition, thus proving the growing success of this event Finally, the executive received detailed reports from the 11 FIFA committees that had held meetings this week at the Home of FIFA. FIFA