A Deeper Look at FIFA Reform

The second installment of my analysis of FIFA reform is now up at Play the Game.

Some key findings and conclusions:

1. 1. Overall FIFA adopted 7 of 59 recommendations (from TI, Pieth and the FIFA IGC) and partially adopted 10 others, leaving 42 unimplemented.
2. 2. In a nutshell, the common characteristics of the proposed reforms not adopted are that they involved (a) sharing authority and control for FIFA decision making with FIFA outsiders, (b) the imposition of external standards of governance on the organization or (c) the opening up of the organization to greater transparency in areas outside the disbursement of FIFA funding to member organizations.
3. I provide a list of nine topics which covers almost all of the 42 recommendations which went unimplemented. (see link below for this list)
4. Assuming full and successful implementation of the proposed reforms in these nine areas would have raised FIFA’s score under the Chappelet-Mrkonjic framework to a level almost exactly equal to their score for the governance IOC -- up to a C level, still far from an A grade.
5. Even with complete implementation of the recommendations by Transparency International, Mark Pieth and the IGC, FIFA would still have a considerable challenge remaining in raising FIFA governance to widely accepted best practices
6. Despite the obviosu shortfall, it is also fair to conclude that several of the reforms which FIFA did implement may indeed be important achievements, such as the establishment of new ethics and audit & compliance committees, with the introduction of (at least partially) independent chairs.

The analysis in full can be found here:

At Play the Game 2013 in a few weeks I will complete the analysis by suggesting several recommendations for next steps in FIFA reform for those who are outside the organization yet would like to see the organization improve its governance practices.