ZURICH, (Reuters) – The vast majority of national football associations (FA) are failing to make basic information public, creating a potential breeding ground for corruption, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International said in a report yesterday.
Transparency said that 81 percent (167) of FIFA’s 209 affiliated FAs have no financial records publicly available, 85 percent (178 FAs) published no annual reports of their activities and more than one in five did not even have a website.
International soccer has been thrown into turmoil by the U.S. indictments of 14 football officials, including two FIFA vice-presidents, and sports marketing executives for alleged corruption.
The sport’s governing body FIFA has borne the brunt of the crisis and both its president Sepp Blatter and European soccer boss Michel Platini, who had been favourite to win the next presidential election, have been suspended for 90 days pending an ethics inquiry into their conduct.
But Transparency said that FIFA’s 209 members, who vote for both the president and have the power to change the FIFA statutes, also needed to improve their governance.
“FIFA does not systematically require transparency and accountability from its members, the national football associations and the regional confederations,” said the report. “Any reform of FIFA will have to make that a priority.”
Transparency said it surveyed web sites of the FAs to see what they provided on four key categories of “basic information that should be available for organisations in order to monitor their governance and standards.”
These were financial accounts, codes of conduct, charters and statutes, and information on activities. One point was awarded for each category.
Only 14 FAs — Canada, Denmark, England, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden — scored four points, Transparency said.
On the other hand, 87 FAs did not score any points, including the 42 who did not have websites. “That means they do not publish any relevant information about their organisations,” said the report.
The report pointed out that between 2011 and 2014, FIFA distributed at least $2.05 million to each of its member FAs.
“Fans have a right to know how the money FAs generate through their interest in football is spent, as does the general public because governments also invest tax payers’ money in football at the national level,” said the report.
“We believe greater transparency lessens the corruption risks.
The results show just how necessary it is for world football to be reformed from the bottom up as well as from the top down.”
A number of FAs have been hit by scandals.
The 14 officials indicted by the U.S. in May included the presidents of the Costa Rican and Venezuelan federations and former presidents of the Nicaraguan, Uruguayan, Cayman Islands, Paraguayan and Brazilian FAs.
On Monday, FIFA banned the heads of the Nepali and Laotian FAs for taking cash during an election for the FIFA executive committee.
Last week, the reputation of the German FA was tarnished when its president Wolfgang Niersbach resigned over a 2006 World Cup scandal.
Niersbach said he was taking the responsibility for a controversial 6.7 million euro ($7.22 million) payment to FIFA alleged to have been used to bribe officials of world soccer’s governing body to vote for Germany’s World Cup hosting bid.
Transparency said that FIFA should make it a condition of membership that FAs publish information about themselves.
“Where there is a lack of information there are heightened corruption risks. The arrests of FIFA executives and their business partners have made the world aware of the corruption that can become systemic, even in football,” it said.
“If football organisations incorporate best anti-corruption practices into how they operate, they can begin to win back trust among fans, limit the scope for bribery and corruption, and help in the fight against match-fixing.”
