Former FIFA honorary Vice President Dr. Chung Mong-joon has announced that he will run for the FIFA presidency with an aim to reform the troubled organization in the wake of Sepp Blatter‘s resignation in June.
“The real reason FIFA has become such a corrupt organization is because the same person and his cronies have been running it for years. Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Chung in a news conference in Paris on Monday. “It has pained me to witness the spectacle of the FIFA president being booed by the fans at football stadiums everywhere.”
Chung described Blatter as “like a cannibal eating his parents and then crying like he’s an orphan” for trying to avoid responsibility for the crisis that has engulfed FIFA over the last few months. He also criticized the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for endorsing UEFA president Michel Platini, the current favorite to win the election. Chung believes Platini isn’t the right person to usher in a new era of football.
FIFA’s Ethics Committee is now investigating Chung for the $500,000 charitable donations he sent to Haiti and $400,000 to Pakistan the same year. Chung brushed off the investigation as “cynical and unethical” and said he’d been donating money to causes at home and abroad since the 1990s.
FIFA will hold an elective congress on February 26 to decide on a replacement for Blatter, who is standing down following the organization’s corruption scandals.
Odds on Platini winning the vote are at 2/9, followed by Prince Ali at 4/1 and Sheik Ahmad Al Sabah at 14/1. If you also want to bet on whether Blatter will be imprisoned before the election, Paddy Power set ‘Yes’ at 6/1 and ‘No’ at 1/14.
FIFA enhances integrity of football games with Perform Group
FIFA subsidiary Early Warning System GmbH (EWS) signed an agreement with UK-based sports media company Perform Group on Wednesday in an effort to enhance the integrity of football matches.
The agreement includes the integration of Perform Group’s Opta brand — the pre-eminent global supplier of performance data both to professional clubs and the world’s largest broadcasters – into EWS’ integrity monitoring system. Opta’s historical and live performance data will optimize the detection and analysis of suspicious activities in sports betting, which can be an indicator for match fixing at FIFA football matches.
“This cooperation with a leading sports data service provider is a perfect fit for our monitoring approach to ensure an effective and fact-based match analysis. Perform is a very strong partner in the global fight against match manipulation, and such cooperation represents a fundamental keystone of our overall strategy,” said FIFA’s Director of Security, Ralf Mutschke.
“Perform fully supports EWS and its commitment to monitor and respond to the threat of match manipulation. We are delighted that Perform digital content can so readily be used in partnership with rights holders in order to strengthen the integrity of competitions. We look forward to cooperating with EWS for the benefit of FIFA competitions and those of its associations and confederations for a long time to come,” said Perform Director of Integrity and Security, Matthew Drew.
