FIFA president Sepp Blatter has announced the infamous ISL court dossier will be opened and handed to an independent body to study to see if any members should face action.
GettyImagesFIFA president Sepp Blatter at the FIFA Executive Committee Meeting
FIFA have until now blocked the release of the court documents, which identifies FIFA officials said to have received payments from the world body’s former marketing partner, but Blatter told a press conference in Zurich that the dossier would now be handed over.
Blatter also announced the creation of three ‘task forces’ and a good governance committee to drive through reforms of FIFA.
He laid out a two-year timetable for implementing the reforms. On the ISL case, Blatter said: “The executive committee has at my request agreed that in the meeting of December 16/17 we will re-open this file.
“If there are any measures to be taken they will not be taken by the executive committee – it is not the body that can take sanctions or release anyone – so we will give this file to an independent organisation outside of FIFA so they can delve into this file and extract its conclusions and present them to us.”
Blatter added: “The court has said there are people involved but no Swiss people only foreign people.”
BBC’s Panorama programme reported that the court file shows Brazil’s FIFA member Ricardo Teixeira and former FIFA president Joao Havelange received payments. Paraguay’s FIFA member Nicolas Leoz was named in the court as having received $ 130,000.