News Digest

Blatter under pressure: Sponsor Coca-Cola calls on FIFA to reform

FIFA sponsor Coca-Cola has broken ranks and called on football’s world governing body to begin independent reform led by “eminent, impartial leaders” in an attempt to end the current crisis. The soft drinks giant, which has been a sponsor since 1978, wrote to FIFA last week urging it to form an independent commission, in what may be the most direct challenge to Sepp Blatter by a commercial partner. Coca-Cola is the first major sponsor to call on FIFA to change and confirmed its intervention in a letter to the International Trade Union Confederation, which has been lobbying FIFA to reform because of its concern over the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup. Their intervention increases the pressure on Mr Blatter as he prepares to propose reforms with the FIFA executive committee at a meeting on Monday that will also set the date for the election of his successor.

We believe that establishing this independent commission will be the most credible way for FIFA to approach its reform process and is necessary to build back the trust it has lost.

Letter from Coca-Cola

FIFA receives about £900m ($1.4bn) from sponsors and several of its global partners have expressed concern during the scandals of the last five years. Pressure on FIFA has intensified after the FBI charged 14 officials and sports marketing executives with racketeering in May, and the Swiss authorities opened a criminal investigation into the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments. Former FIFA vice-president Jeffrey Webb, one of those arrested in raids in Switzerland, is understood to have agreed to extradition and been escorted to the United States. Coca-Cola is the first sponsor to advocate a specific reform process, and it comes after the ITUC and other bodies began lobbying them under the New FIFA Now umbrella.

It’s now time for the other sponsors with Visa, adidas and McDonald’s to take a stand against corruption and put the game back on track.

Sharan Burrow, secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation