MORE SANCTIONS BY FIFA

FIFA’S head of sustainability and diversity, Federico Addiechi, defended differing sanctions, such as CHF70,000 (RM280,000) for Croatia not using official drinks during a match and CHF10,000 (RM40,000) for Mexico because of their fans’ homophobic chanting. This led to some criticism but Addiechi said that “every case is treated individually” and various elements, such as cooperation of the country’s federation and its sanction history, were taken into account in determining sanctions. He pledged that FIFA would be more transparent in the future and that it would publish its criteria for a sanction. According to dpa calculations FIFA has imposed fines of CHF687,000 (RM2.75m) so far in the June 14-July 15 tournament. Addiechi said that several fans have been stripped of their Fan-IDs and some also deported after incidents. In all Addiechi expressed satisfaction with the tournament in a four-year programme which had included the training of 40,000 people ranging from teams to volunteers and security personnel. “It has been a welcoming and warm world Cup with hospitable hosts. The bad publicity proved completely wrong. Our mechanisms allowed us to take immediate action in reported cases,” he said.