Adviser Scala makes his FIFA reform manifesto public

Many have urged FIFA to change its ways. Few have succeeded.

Reform adviser Domenico Scala put his 29-page dossier into the public domain on Thursday, trying to influence a process now driven by a FIFA-appointed panel led by veteran Olympic official Francois Carrard.

It is far from clear if FIFA's decision makers will heed the Swiss businessman, who has overseen the soccer body's audit and compliance standards since 2012.

For FIFA skeptics, some proposals are doomed to fail.

Here are the some of the highlights of Scala's eight-point plan:

INTEGRITY CHECKS

Empowering the FIFA ethics committee to conduct stricter vetting of executive committee members and candidates for senior positions.

This was already proposed by previous FIFA adviser Mark Pieth - and blocked by the executive committee.

Scala's extra kicker is that only member federations with the same integrity checks would be eligible to propose candidates for committee seats.

TERM LIMITS

A maximum of three four-year terms for the FIFA president, executive committee members, the secretary-general and members of FIFA's independent committees and judicial bodies.

ELECTION BY CONGRESS

In recent years, Blatter complained he must work with "his government" - meaning the scandal-hit executive committee.

Scala suggests future executive members must be directly elected by the entire 209-member FIFA Congress.

Still, each continental body would retain the right to propose its own candidates. It is difficult to see how other confederations would block the preferred choices.

PUBLISH PAY

Scala proposes only a partial victory for fiscal transparency.

Indeed, top officials - FIFA president, executive committee members, the secretary-general, chairs of independent committees - would have to disclose all their soccer-related income and compensation. But only to a FIFA internal committee, not the public.

The FIFA financial report would show listings by certain income categories.

FEWER COMMITTEES

FIFA's bloated committee structure - which gives all 209 member federations a seat somewhere - would be trimmed.

Fewer committees, fewer members and mandatory independent chairmen or chairwomen for those panels "that bear a high risk of conflicts of interests".

WHAT'S GOOD FOR FIFA ...

Higher governance standards imposed on FIFA would in the future apply for the confederations and members also.

For example, they would be required to "issue adequate ethics and disciplinary regulations and set up the bodies required to implement them".

(China Daily 09/12/2015 page12)