KARACHI: On a day when FIFA’s Executive Committee proposed term limits on the FIFA president, the chairman of the world’s football governing body’s independent Audit and Compliance Committee Domenico Scala said that it will trickle down the football pyramid.

FIFA’s Executive Committee on Thursday approved a 12-year limit for the FIFA chief and its leading officials as the world body looks to come out of a scandal that has tarnished its image.

The ExCo meeting was held hours after two of its members were arrested in dawn raids in Zurich and while Scala didn’t go into the detail of the arrests of acting CONCACAF president Alfredo Hawit of Honduras and CONCACAF chief Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay, he said Wednesday marked an “important milestone” in FIFA’s history.

“I’ve addressed term limits at FIFA, the confederations and the member associations,” FIFA’s chief overseer Scala said while answering a question by Dawn during a conference call with reporters after the ExCo meeting.

“I’ve been advocating them for a long time and I believe that the standards set will trickle down on the football pyramid and not just stop at FIFA.

“There are certain member associations which have term limits in place and I think that it is a necessary step to root out corruption from football.”

The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has been in turmoil over the last six months due to a fight between two factions involving a court case that hinges on the country’s football governing body not accepting term limits for sports federations set by the government.

Scala, whose reform proposals of FIFA that he unveiled in September were widely accepted by the ExCo on Thursday, said that a revolving door on presidency helps in change.

“Replacement is a good way of ushering in change,” he said. “Term limits help because they ensure someone doesn’t stay in absolute power ... which results in groupings and formation of old boys’ clubs within federations.”

He said he believes that FIFA’s image will be restored with the reforms that also include improving transparency, replacing the FIFA ExCo with a FIFA Council, stricter integrity checks of officials before they took office and a public disclosure of their compensation.

The reforms must be approved at a meeting of FIFA’s 209-member associations on Feb 26, when a replacement will also be chosen for its suspended president Sepp Blatter, who is the subject of a Swiss criminal investigation.

“It will take time but with the reforms in place, FIFA’s credibility will be restored,” Scala said. “We need a culture of change within FIFA and I believe these reforms are sufficient to protect FIFA going forward.”

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2015