FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Tuesday announced that world football’s governing body has adopted a new code of ethics in the wake of a series of damaging corruption scandals.
One of the central planks of the new code is that there will no longer be a time limitation for the prosecution of bribery and corruption cases.
The announcement comes after a rocky few days for world football’s governing body, with Blatter having to defend his stance on bribery after a Swiss court revealed that his predecessor Joao Havelange had accepted enormous kick-backs.
Havelange, FIFA president for a 24-year spell up to Blatter’s election in 1998, pocketed at least 1.5 million Swiss francs (£986,000, 820,000 euros) from FIFA’s discredited Swiss-based marketing partner ISL, according to court documents.
Blatter has come under heavy fire for his handling of the affair, with the head of the German football federation Wolfgang Niersbach on Saturday declaring himself “shocked” at Blatter’s handling of the scandal.
Blatter has sought to distance himself from the Havelange case, declaring last Thursday that he was powerless to sanction the 96-year-old Brazilian and pointing out that such payments were not illegal under Swiss law at the time. Responding to calls that he should consider his position, Blatter was defiant.
