KITZBUHEL: Spanish league president Javier Tebas wants to see a “cultural revolution” at FIFA and has no confidence that the embattled world football federation can be reformed “from the inside” writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
Tebas, the combative lawyer who is a long-time critic of Spanish federation president Angel Villar, warned: “The future of football is at stake.”
Echoing angry criticism of the international sport from South Korean Chung Mong-joon earlier in the day, he added: “The term ‘football family’ is more like a reference to the Sicilian Mafia. If you criticise FIFA they threaten you with the expulsion from their competitions. That is corruption.”
Tebas did not trust departing FIFA president Sepp Blatter or UEFA’s French leader Michel Platini or Villar who is a vice-president of both FIFA and UEFA.
Platini is favourite to succeed Blatter an a FIFA election next February 26 but Tebas dismissed him as “part of the system” who should be debarred from standing.
Busy man
Tebas said he had no interest in standing for the FIFA presidency himself because a great deal of work remained to be done within Spanish football, notably in restructuring club finances through the central selling of Liga TV rights.
He reiterated his stated opposition to a switch of the World Cup in 2022 to November and December to avoid the searing summer temperatures in Gulf host Qatar.
Tebas said: “This is not a problem about the health of the players because the organizers have ensured air-conditioned stadia and training camps.
“The change to November and December is very damaging to European leagues and shows that senior people in FIFA are not familiar with the football industry.
“If it ultimately emerges from all the investigations that the election [in December 2010] was not clean then there is only one solution: repeat the vote.
“Without this it would not be possible to start the reconstruction of FIFA.”