Can Man U and Real transform international football?

ECA clubs such as Bayern, Manchester United and Real Madrid should launch a “revolution” to transform football if necessary: Rummenigge. -File photo

LONDON: Former German international Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has launched a scathing attack on football’s rulers and wants clubs to be given a bigger say in running the sport, it was reported Wednesday.
Rummenigge, the chairman of the European Club Association and chief executive of Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich, told The Guardian he had lost confidence in FIFA following a string of recent corruption scandals.
The 55-year-old said ECA clubs such as Bayern, Manchester United and Real Madrid should launch a “revolution” to transform football if necessary.
“I don’t accept any longer that we should be guided by people who are not serious and clean,” he told the Guardian.
“Now is the moment to intervene. Because knowing something is wrong is an obligation to change.”
Rummenigge said clubs around the world supported reform of football’s power structure.
“It’s not just the top clubs, it’s all the clubs,” he said.
“Sepp Blatter is saying that he is cleaning up but the fact that no one believes him tells you everything you need to know.
“I’m not optimistic because they believe the system is working perfectly as it is. It’s a money machine, World Cup after World Cup. And for them, that’s more important than serious and clean governance.”
Rummenigge said he doubted whether national associations would be able to change FIFA from within.
“The current system is tailor-made for the associations and voted for by the associations. They won’t go against (Fifa),” he said.
“All stakeholders — clubs, associations, players, referees, and women’s football — have a right to be involved in the decision-making process.”
I will give them a chance but I’m ready for a revolution if that’s the only way to come to a solution,” he said.
Rummenigge is also scathing of the rapid expansion in size of tournaments like the World Cup and the European Championship.
“When I won the European Championship [in 1980], there were eight teams in the finals. That figure will treble by 2016,” he said.
“In the World Cup, it used to be 16 teams, now it’s 32. The clubs pay the players but are not part of the decision-making process. We are not treated respectfully.”

Bin Hammam handed lifetime ban, plans appeal

The 62-year-old Qatari, the president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), had been accused of trying to buy votes in the FIFA presidential election -AFP Photo

ZURICH: Asian football supremo Mohamed bin Hammam was on Saturday banned from the game for life after being found guilty of corruption following a two-day hearing of FIFA’s ethics committee.
The 62-year-old Qatari, the president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), had been accused of trying to buy votes in the FIFA presidential election with $40,000 cash gifts to Caribbean football officials.
“The official Mr Bin Hammam is hereby banned from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national or international level for life,”announced ethics committee deputy chairman Petrus Damaseb.
Bin Hammam did not attend the hearing, which took place behind closed doors at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, but he told AFP in a telephone conversation on Saturday evening that he intended to appeal.
He specified that the first step would consist of making an appeal to FIFA, but he has previously declared that he is prepared to take his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and, if necessary, the civil courts.
Bin Hammam, the most high-ranking FIFA figure to be convicted of corruption, also reacted to the decision on his blog by publishing a scanned copy of a personal letter sent to him by FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2008.
In the letter, which Blatter addressed to “My dear brother,” Bin Hammam highlighted a phrase in which the 75-year-old Swiss had written: “Without you, dear Mohamed, none of this would ever have been possible”.
Below the letter were the words: “This is only the battle, not the war…”— suggesting that he holds Blatter at least partly responsible for his fate.
The head of Bin Hammam’s legal team, Eugene Gulland, read out a statement from him after the verdict was announced.
“Mr Bin Hammam rejects the findings of the FIFA ethics committee hearing and maintains his innocence,” said Gulland. “He will continue to fight his case through the legal routes that are open to him.
“The FIFA ethics committee has apparently based its decision on so-called ‘circumstantial evidence’, which our case has clearly demonstrated was bogus and founded on lies told by senior FIFA officials.”
Whistle-blowers said Bin Hammam tried to bribe officials to vote for him by distributing cash-stuffed envelopes during a Caribbean Football Union (CFU) meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on May 10-11.
CFU officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester, also being investigated by the ethics committee over claims they helped hand out the money, were each banned from football-related activity for a year.
In addition, Damaseb revealed that the committee had rejected an accusation of racial discrimination made by CFU members against CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer, who sparked the initial investigation into the bribery claims.
However, Blazer was warned over comments he made at a CONCACAF meeting on May 30 that certain CFU members were “under investigation”, which FIFA said was “not true”.
Former FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF president Jack Warner was also charged over his alleged role in the affair, but his resignation from FIFA last month prompted the organisation to drop all the charges against him.
Damaseb admitted that Warner’s absence from the proceedings was a matter of regret.
“Mr Jack Warner chose to resign and by that action he placed himself beyond the jurisdiction of this committee,” said Damaseb.
“Everyone would have wanted him to appear and face the charges and explain his conduct, but he chose not to do that.”
Damaseb also said that the evidence reviewed by the committee during the hearing had yielded grounds for investigations into the conduct of other parties, but he did not reveal who they were.
Bin Hammam’s withdrawal from the presidential election gifted a fourth straight term in office to his former ally Blatter, who made cleaning up FIFA’s tarnished image a post-election priority.
The Qatari, who had been instrumental in winning the hosting rights of the 2022 World Cup for his tiny Gulf state, had expected to be punished by the ethics committee.
“It seems likely that FIFA has already made its decision weeks ago,” he wrote on his blog in the build-up to the hearing.
“So none of us should be completely surprised if a guilty verdict is returned.”
Acting AFC president Zhang Jilong, the favourite to succeed Bin Hammam at the head of the organisation, said it was “a sad day for AFC and Asian football.”
He added: “AFC respects world football governing body FIFA’s decision and we also acknowledge former AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam’s inalienable right to lodge an appeal against the decision.”