Uefa rejects suggestion that confederations blocked Fifa reforms

Uefa has hit back at suggestions that it and other continental confederations have been responsible for blocking reforms aimed at cleaning up football’s scandal-plagued world governing body, Fifa.
The Uefa general secretary, Gianni Infantino, said there were enough mechanisms in place to ensure only officials with a clean past were elected on to Fifa committees.
His comments came after Domenico Scala, who is overseeing Fifa reforms, demanded an independent committee be created to carry out integrity checks on executive committee members before they could be allowed to take office.

Scala said confederations had blocked these reforms and said their “actions must be consistent with their speech”.
Continental confederations, which elect the Fifa executive committee members, carry out integrity checks, a system that Infantino said should continue.
“Uefa and the European associations have always been in favour of reforms and have always been in favour of integrity checks being made in the confederations,” he said.
“Our members have to comply with our disciplinary and ethics rules at any time, not only when they are candidates. In addition to this, you have the Fifa ethics regulations which means Fifa can, at any time, make all the checks that they want to any person they want.
“I don’t think this is a real issue, it’s more a communication issue. The real instruments are there, they just have to be applied.”

Fifa was embroiled in scandal when a US probe led to the criminal indictment on 27 May of nine current and former Fifa officials and five executives in sports marketing and broadcasting on bribery, money-laundering and wire fraud charges.
Swiss authorities are investigating the decision by Fifa’s executive committee to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively.
The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, said on 2 June that he would step down and call a new presidential election in which he would not be a candidate.
This will take place between December and February, with the exact date to be decided by Fifa’s executive committee on 20 July. The Uefa president Michel Platini, who did not attend the news conference, has not commented on whether he will run.
“It’s not a question of making deals; of course there are discussions and of course the focus has to be on saving football,” Infantino said. “This [20 July meeting] will fix a date and we will take it from there. We need some clarity and we need to work for the good of football in this situation.”