FIFA governance committee loses two more members
Two more members of FIFA’s governance committee have left their seat after last week’s council meeting revealed that the former chairman would not be reappointed.
FIFA’s governance oversight panel has lost two members, AP reports today.
Both Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Ron Popper, human rights expert, have resigned after FIFA decided not to reappoint Portuguese lawyer Miguel Maduro, who had been leading the commission for almost a year.
“The world of football still hasn’t realized what is required if they really want to act under the rule of law and in a manner that is subject to effective, independent scrutiny,” said Maduro in an interview with AP.
Among Maduro’s assignments as committee chairman was the vetting of candidates for senior positions in FIFA, and Maduro was instrumental in ruling Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko ineligible for the FIFA Council.
The exit of Maduro also prompted the resignation of governance committee member US law professor Joseph Weiler.
Leading up to the FIFA Congress this weekend, the FIFA Council decided not to nominate Hans-Joachim Eckert, head of the adjudicatory arm of the FIFA Ethics Committee, nor Cornel Borbély, head of the investigative chamber, for another four-year term.
A decision the outgoing officials called “politically motivated” and an action that will “further hurt the already tarnished image of FIFA”.