ZURICH: The fascination for FIFA watchers was not in the comparatively anodyne  and well-flagged reforms about which president Sepp Blatter talked after his exco meeting but the issues he did not discuss writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

These are all listed – along with beefing up the ethics system and updating IFAB – in the 20-page report and recommendations submitted by Basel governance expert Mark Pieth.

The assumption will be that all the rest of the proposals are stumbling blocks to a greater or lesser degree. One headline proposal from Pieth is that not only the president but also members of the executive committee should serve only a maximum of two four-year terms.

Blatter, for example, is in his fourth term and predecessor Joao Havelange was president for 24 years. Senior exco members affected would include Argentina’s Julio Grondona and Paraguay’s Nicolas Leoz.

Clearly, limiting the term in office also limits the power of patronage – a potential insidiously corrupting factor.

Pieth’s other recommendations include:

* vetting of nominees for senior position by a nominations committee;

* exco members or officials to be subject to impeachment if suspected of unethical behaviour;

* the creation of specific rules regarding conflict of interest, gifts and hospitality etc;

* a new development committee

* the IGC to have a role in appointments to financially-delicate development programme committees;

* additional members of the executive committe to include the audit-and-compliance as well as nominations committee chairmen;

* greater financial controls over the use of FIFA funds by national associations;

* streamlining of decison-making over tournament hosts, marketing decisions and development programmes;

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