Leagues urge real change at FIFA
The heads of top football leagues warned that a failure by FIFA to clean up its act following Friday's presidential election will have devastating consequences for the global game at all levels. Asked about his confidence in real reform at world football's governing body, Jacco Swart, head of the Dutch Eredivisie, said: "It can still go wrong, but it will be unbelievable if it goes wrong again." Swart told AFP that the impact on clubs has been lost in discussions of the FIFA crisis, but stressed that the tarnishing of football's reputation in recent months has had consequences across the game. "If FIFA and the people in FIFA are not going to act on the message from the whole world that it is time to change...then the system fails." He made the comments following a briefing of the newly-created World Leagues Forum, a grouping of 24 leagues from all continents that aims to advocate for club interests in football's global management. The president of France's LFP, Frederic Thiriez, underscored that professional leagues wanted to be a part of efforts to restore football's reputation. "We are suffering. Everybody is suffering from this terrible crisis and this terrible image of football," Thiriez said. "That's why we are really motivated to help. We want to participate...in the reconstruction of FIFA," he added. Europe's Gianni Infantino and Asian football leader Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al Khalifa are the front-runners in Friday's vote to replace the disgraced Sepp Blatter.
