KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: European federation is to rush through a replacement for Reinhard Grindel on FIFA Council ahead of the world football federation’s congress in Paris next month.

Grindel, 57, quit as president of the German DFB in April after revelations about a lack of clarity over his earnings and his acceptance of a luxury watch.

The scandal climaxed an increasingly turbulent reign by the former Bundestag deputy for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU which had seen him blunder over the past year from one leadership crisis to another.

Grindel decided also to step down from his role as a member of the UEFA executive committee and as a delegate from the European federation on the governing council of the world federation.

This left UEFA with seven representatives on FIFA Council ahead of its meeting in Paris on the eve of the world game’s congress on June 5.

UEFA will fill that gap before then. An item on its exco agenda for next week in Baku, hours before the Europa League Final between Arsenal and Chelsea, concerns “Reinhard Grindel’s replacement as FIFA Council member and as UEFA vice-president.”

The problem has arisen before.

In  May 2018 the death of Cypriot FA president Costakis Koutsokoumnis led UEFA’s exco to appoint George Koumas to take up the vacancy on FIFA Council until the 2019 UEFA Congress. He was re-elected as a FIFA Council member for the 2019-21 period at UEFA’s Rome Congress this past February.

** FIFA supremo Gianni Infantino has been presented with Russia’s Order of Friendship by state President Vladimir Putin after the success of last year’s World Cup finals.

UEFA exco agenda:

* UEFA Women’s Champions League final 2021, appointment of host

* Approval of various competition and technical regulations

* 2020–22 UEFA European Futsal Championship