Who Can Fix Fifa?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2015
⏱️ 23 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fifa has been described as a “totalitarian” set-up “beyond ridicule” with a leadership “incapable of reform or cultural change”. A corruption report is said to have contained “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations”.
Many have argued that world football’s governing body is badly in need of reform. So, as Fifa prepares to elect its next president, our question this week: who can fix FIfa? Sponsors and broadcasters provide the vast majority of the body’s income. Could they force change? Fifa relies on the support of regional organisations like Uefa to maintain its hold over world football. Could they put pressure on Fifa’s leadership? Or could the key be new laws in Switzerland, where Fifa is based? And what are the chances of change from within? Examining evidence from experts who know Fifa outside and in, The Inquiry has answers. Presenter: Helena Merriman. (Image:Member of the media wait next to a logo of the Worlds football governing body. Credit:MICHAEL BUHOLZER/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC World Service, this is Helena Merriman with The Inquiry. |
| 0:09.0 | This week... |
| 0:10.0 | You had people who were ready to sell their votes. Some of the old hands have been |
| 0:15.2 | taking millions and they had to leave. Scandal after scandal and it needs to |
| 0:21.1 | come to an end. Frankly this this has gone on for years now. |
| 0:24.0 | It's not improving. |
| 0:25.0 | It's going from bad to worse to worse. |
| 0:27.0 | It's going |
| 0:28.0 | for worse. It started out as a charity in Switzerland over a hundred years ago and has become one of the most powerful organizations in the world. |
| 0:41.0 | But now the governing body for football is in a bad way. |
| 0:45.0 | So in the week that FIFA decides whether to re-elect |
| 0:49.6 | Seth's president, we're asking, who can fix FIFA? |
| 0:55.0 | It's Thursday the 13th of November 2014. The stage is set for high drama. The release of a report summarizing a two-year investigation into allegations of vote-buying in the selection of Russia |
| 1:15.1 | and Qatar to host the next two World Cups. Enter stage left Hans Yerkem-Eckert, a German judge and FIFA's independent ethics adjudicator. |
| 1:26.7 | His 40-page report finds no evidence of wrongdoing. |
| 1:31.0 | FIFA breathes a sigh of relief. But the drama isn't quite over. Enter stage |
| 1:37.4 | right, American lawyer Michael Garcia, FIFA's independent ethics investigator, the man who carried out that two-year |
| 1:45.4 | investigation into the World Cup bids. He says that the German adjudicator's |
| 1:50.1 | summary is full of mistakes and resides in protest. |
| 1:54.7 | The drama has turned to farce. |
| 1:57.8 | And instead of closure, a question. |
| 2:01.0 | What would it take to reform football's governing body? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.