Gill seeks to scrap FIFA bonus culture
ENGLISH football powerbroker David Gill wants all FIFA bonuses to be scrapped, with executives paid the going rate without extra payments that have led to serial corruption.
FIFA’s investigatory lawyers revealed last week that disgraced trio Sepp Blatter, Jerome Valcke and Markus Kattner had shared nearly £60million in dodgy bonuses and pay rises over five years.
Gill, who sits on both the FIFA council and UEFA executive committee, totally disagrees with a bonus system at a not-for-profit football organisation. Instead he wants the FIFA executive to be paid wages similar to those for similar roles elsewhere.
New FIFA president Gianni Infantino has made a desperate start to his reign, smuggling through reforms that give him unprecedented powers. He was also hell-bent on getting rid of audit and compliance chief Domenica Scala, who resigned following Infantino taking hire-and-fire control of supposedly independent committees. Infantino has effectively blamed Scala for a media witch-hunt against him and called his interest in football ‘sudden and recent’.
Nevertheless, Gill maintains that Infantino is still the best man for the job of cleaning up world football, although he has made mistakes.
Gill spoke out at that murky FIFA council meeting in Mexico City about the way Scala’s dismissal was being handled by Infantino. And he will do so again if he considers it necessary — including on the subject of bonuses.
AFTER all the fuss Rock of Gibraltar caused Manchester United, you might think the current hierarchy would steer clear of horse racing. But executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward was at Epsom to watch his horse Dark Devil, which he owns with colleague Richard Arnold and Nicholas Wrigley, finish down the field in the first race on Derby day. However, if it hadn’t been for the Rock’s breeding-rights war with Sir Alex Ferguson, JP McManus and John Magnier wouldn’t have sold the club to the Glazer family, who now champion commercial expert Woodward through thick and thin. Meanwhile, ITV chief executive Adam Crozier, who is rarely seen at a sporting event despite his network’s many rights, was at the Derby to reinforce how seriously they will be taking their racing coverage next year. BBC Sport’s self-indulgent Euro 2016 trailer has presenters and pundits, including Gary Lineker, Gabby Logan (right) and Alan Shearer, dressed up in Versailles-style costumes with the jokey catch-line Liberté, Égalité, Footé. Unfortunately, the French word with the nearest pronunciation to Footé is unprintable. The Beeb are coy about the cost of the extravaganza, saying it is ‘commercially sensitive’.
ONLY in rural Chantilly could the cafe across the road from the England hotel be so unaware of what’s to come that rude staff at first refused to serve English media who were waiting for the arrival of the players because they didn’t speak French. And hopefully for Roy Hodgson’s squad, the rooms at the back of the hotel are less noisy than the ones at the front that back on to heavy traffic during the day.