Image Courtesy of George Mason University
Here is a shock, financial corruption claims in a large sport agency. The Federation of International Football Association, headquartered in Zurich and founded in 1904 is under fire. One member of FIFA’s financial monitoring panel has been removed from duty due to implications in financial corruption. Crime units and anti-corruption officials in the Cayman Islands questioned Canover Watson over apparent findings and issues.
Watson has claimed no wrong doing in the case but in the meantime, he has been stood down. The financial monitoring panel was first created in 2012 to scrutinize FIFA’s $1 billion in annual revenue along with all of FIFA’s commercial contracts.
Watson is the treasurer of the Cayman Islands football federation and also the director of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange.
On Tuesday, FIFA made the announcement that the committee chairman, Domenico Scala, decided to take action. Here are the comments as we know them now according to FIFA who stated,
“decided to temporarily relieve until further notice Canover Watson, to whom the presumption of innocence applies.”
There is an eight member panel scheduled to meet in the coming months. That meeting is specifically in Morocco on the 16th of December.
As more news is available about the incident and any ripple down implications as they related to FIFA or any of its members or officials we will let you know. One thing is for sure, interesting times are coming.
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