The International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has called on Fifa to put its house in order following the suspension of its president Sepp Blatter, secretary general Jérôme Valcke, former vice-president Chung Mong-joon and presidential hopeful Michel Platini.
The IOC, which underwent its own stable-cleaning exercise following allegations of bribe-taking over the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, issued a statement in which it said: “Enough is enough. We hope that now, finally, everyone at Fifa has at last understood that they cannot continue to remain passive.
“They must act swiftly to regain credibility because you cannot forever dissociate the credibility of Fifa from the credibility of football.”
Blatter’s controversial 17-year reign was all but ended on Thursday when Fifa’s ethics committee suspended him pending a criminal investigation into allegations the Swiss mis-sold a World Cup TV rights contract to the disgraced former Fifa official Jack Warner in 2006 and made a “disloyal payment” of £1.3m to Platini in 2011. Blatter and Platini deny any wrongdoing.
The president of the Confederation of African Football, Issa Hayatou, is to become acting Fifa president though he said he would not stand for permanent office in the February election.
The IOC said: “Fifa must realise that this is now about more than just a list of candidates. This is also a structural problem and will not be solved simply by the election of a new president.
“They must do two things immediately: they must accelerate and deepen the reform process in order to comply with accountability, transparency and all the principles of good governance, as expressed in our reform programme, Olympic Agenda 2020.
“They should also be open for a credible external presidential candidate of high integrity, to accomplish the necessary reforms and bring back stability and credibility to Fifa.”
