ZURICH: Chaired by FIFA President Blatter, the FIFA Executive Committee today completed a two-day meeting, the third of the year, at the Home of FIFA in Zurich. The meeting started with a tribute to former FIFA Senior Vice-President Julio Humberto Grondona, who passed away on 30 July.

In order to protect the integrity of the game and the players, the Executive Committee took the decision of general principle that third-party ownership of players’ economic rights (TPO) shall be banned with a transitional period.

The matter is now back in the hands of the TPO working group, under the chairmanship of Geoff Thompson, for the relevant technical regulations to be drafted. The draft will be submitted to the Players’ Status Committee and then to the Executive Committee for approval.

Regarding the current proceedings of the independent Ethics Committee in relation to the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups™, the executive welcomed the recent information from the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber, Hans-Joachim Eckert, confirming that a first public statement of the committee’s position with regard to the report of the investigatory chamber is likely to be made at the beginning of November.

The executive also demanded that the principle of confidentiality be respected, in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Ethics.

FIFA’s mission includes the protection of players’ health. In this regard, the executive approved the new protocol proposed by the FIFA Medical Committee for the management of concussion.

It also noted with great satisfaction the major reduction in the occurrence of injuries at the FIFA World Cup™ (40% fewer incidents than in 2002) as well as the absence of any positive doping cases at FIFA’s flagship event, where, for the first time at a FIFA World Cup™, all participating players underwent out-of-competition anti-doping tests in addition to routine in-competition tests. Furthermore, since the new WADA code will be implemented on 1 January 2015 and FIFA, as a signatory of this code, has an obligation to implement the mandatory changes, the executive approved the revised FIFA Anti-Doping Regulations, which include, amongst others, the sanction of a four-year (instead of two-year) ban for cheating with serious doping substances (such as steroids) and calculated doping methods (such as blood doping).

To support the fight against the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Medical Committee will make contact and collaborate with the World Health Organization. Furthermore, the FIFA Finance Committee decided to donate USD 50,000 to each of the football associations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – to be spent in conjunction with a local United Nations initiative – as well as USD 300,000 to repair the football turf of a stadium in Monrovia, where a large-scale treatment unit has been installed, at the end of the operation.

Further financial support from FIFA’s solidarity funds include a contribution of USD 1 million for the construction of two football turf pitches for Syrian refugees in Lebanon as well as USD 250,000 for the building of a football school in the region of Soma, Turkey, where the worst mining disaster in Turkish history occurred in May.

With the objective of leaving a lasting legacy in the host country Brazil, the executive decided to add an amount of USD 80 million to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™ Legacy Fund, thus reaching a total amount of USD 100 million. The fund’s reach goes beyond infrastructure, also encompassing efforts aimed at fostering growth of both women’s and grassroots football, as well as preventative healthcare, public health and social programmes for underprivileged communities. These projects will be approved in line with FIFA’s development strategies.

The executive also approved the renewal of the Club Protection Programme for the 2015-2018 cycle, which will also cover women’s international “A” matches. The total cost is estimated at EUR 100 million.

For the development of football worldwide, which is FIFA’s primary mission, the executive ratified the approval by the FIFA Development Committee of numerous projects within the various development programmes of FIFA, such as the Goal programme, the programme for less-privileged member associations, the income generation programme and the PERFORMANCE programme.

The executive also discussed upcoming FIFA competitions. For the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, the reduction in capacity to 35,000 of the stadiums in Kaliningrad and Ekaterinburg was approved. Regarding the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015™, the executive ratified the decision to assign an independent company to travel to Canada in order to test pitches and training fields to ensure they fulfil the FIFA quality requirements.

In accordance with the Electoral regulations for the FIFA Presidency, the executive formally confirmed the “call for the FIFA presidential elections 2015” which will be sent as a circular to the FIFA member associations as well as the confederations and published on FIFA.com. The call for elections includes the names of the members of the Ad-hoc Electoral Committee, the electoral period and the electoral calendar.

Other matters:

–  “Copa América Centenario”: authorisation on exceptional basis to CONMEBOL and CONCACAF to organise a Copa América Centenario in 2016 in the USA for the centenary of CONMEBOL and the Copa América, with the tournament dates to be included in the international match calendar

–  Women’s international match calendar: approval of the dates for the years 2015 and 2016

–  The match schedule for the FIFA Club World Cup Morocco 2014 was formally approved.

The next meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee will be held in Marrakech, on the occasion of the FIFA Club World Cup Morocco 2014, on Thursday, 18 and Friday, 19 December 2014.