Declaring that “enough is enough,” IOC President Thomas Bach called on Thursday for an “external presidential candidate” to take over FIFA and restore credibility to world soccer’s scandal-scarred governing body.
In a strongly worded statement, the International Olympic Committee president said FIFA must speed up its reform process and consider appointing a respected outside figure who can bring legitimacy and public confidence to the body.
“They should ... be open for a credible external presidential candidate of high integrity, to accomplish the necessary reforms and bring back stability and credibility to FIFA,” Bach said.
While no names were mentioned, some IOC officials have suggested a figure like former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan could be a possibility for the role.
Bach spoke out shortly after Blatter was suspended by the FIFA ethics committee for 90 days amid a Swiss criminal investigation. “FIFA must realize that this is now about more than just a list of candidates,” Bach said. “This is also a structural problem and will not be solved simply by the election of a new president.”
Bach said FIFA must “accelerate and deepen the reform process in order to comply with accountability, transparency and all the principles of good governance” in line with the IOC’s “Olympic Agenda 2020” reform program.
Blatter’s 16-year term as an IOC member ended in August. He told the IOC that he would not seek re-election because he would be leaving as FIFA president a few months later.
Hayatou has been an IOC member since 2001. He received a reprimand in 2011 following an investigation by the IOC’s ethics commission into payments received from FIFA’s former marketing agency ISl, which collapsed with debts of $300 million in 2011.