FIFA to reward whistle-blowers

FIFA look to clean up football and avoid corruption scandals such as the one involving Jack Warner [EPA]

FIFA’s security chief says whistle-blowers will be offered financial rewards and an amnesty to provide information on match-fixing and other corruption in football.

World football’s governing body has cited mounting evidence that international and club matches are being targeted by criminal gangs who bribe players and referees.

FIFA’s head of security Chris Eaton told a conference in London on Monday that “from January next year, I will manage a rewards’ program for people in football to tell us about corruption in the sport of football, particularly match-fixing.”

Eaton says there will also be a hotline and amnesty for “those players, officials and administrators who have been involved – or potentially involved – in fixing matches.”

Despite FIFA’s good intentions it is unlikely these new reforms would have prevented the scandal that engulfed Mohammed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner this year. 

Although Warner has since been forced out of the sport, the former FIFA vice president shows no sign of giving up his feud with football’s leading organisation. 

Warner has put the attention back on FIFA blaming Zionism for the circumstances that led to his and former Asian Football Confederation chief Bin Hammam’s downfall.

Warner resigned from FIFA after ethics investigations were begun into a meeting he held with Bin Hammam where FIFA say payments were made to Caribbean soccer officials ahead of the election for FIFA president in June.

Qatari Bin Hammam was handed a lifetime ban by FIFA for his role in the affair while a number of Caribbean officials were given suspensions last week.

But Trinidadian Warner says in a letter to the Trinidad Guardian, which will be published in full on Tuesday, he intends to speak out on the affair and highlighted who he felt was to blame for his downfall.

“I will talk about the Zionism, which probably is the most important reason why this acrid attack on Bin Hammam and me was mounted,” Warner told the newspaper.

Warner also said he was unhappy with the way he had been treated by FIFA since his resignation.

“FIFA has tried to muzzle me with threats of a worldwide suspension. They have said that they will close down the FIFA Development Office in Trinidad by year end.

“They have advised that they will terminate my son’s 2012 contract at the end of this year. They have retaken the World Cup TV Rights, a matter for which they have not heard the last.

“They have refused to give me any of my 29-year pension.

“They continue to do such things like revealing a video in the hope that they can embarrass me to lie down on my belly. Never, I repeat, never, regardless of the consequences,” he said.