01 Mar 2016

President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama has welcomed election of the new FIFA  president, Mr Gianni Infantino. 

Senior Private Secretary to the President, Brigadier George Tlhalerwa, confirmed that the President Khama had  communicated to the incoming FIFA president through a congratulatory letter.

In his message, the President stated that  he was confident that  Mr Infantino would deliver.

Brigadier Tlhalerwa said President Khama was of the view that Infantino had necessary exeperience to change the image of the world football governing body.

He said he also welcomed the package of reforms that the FIFA congress adopted to address poor governance that bedevilled the organisation in recent years. 

President Khama said he hoped FIFA president and his executive would focus on delivering world class football events, so that national associations, national teams, football clubs and the fans would once again enjoy the beautiful game,

Meanwhile Botswana Football Association (BFA) president, Mr Tebogo Sebego, said he had always viewed Infantino as one of the strongest candidates, adding that the association was happy that as the candidate whose credentials were never doubted, he had been elected to office.

Mr Sebego told the media in a press conference that prior to the elections, the congress voted in favour of reforms as proposed by the Reforms Committee, adding given the worst crisis in its history, FIFA thought it was ideal to consider the crisis as a unique opportunity to renew itself.

“In order to restore confidence in itself, FIFA found it important to introduce significant modifications to its institutional structures and its operational process”, he said.

According to Mr Sebego, that was necessary to prevent corruption, fraud, self-dealing and to make the organisation more transparent and accountable.

He said in its recommendation, the Reforms Committee proposed three sets of principles to reform at FIFA, amongst them principles of leadership to effect cultural change.

 In this principle, FIFA was expected to cultivate responsibility, humility and tone at the top, respect and candour.

The second principle, he said was of governanc where FIFA should clearly separate political and management functions, promote financial transparency and control, attach terms to elections and terms of members of the FIFA council and the president.

The principle further called for promotion of transparency of compensation, develop universal principles for confederations and member associations and give greater recognition of the role and promotion of women in football.

Mr Sebego said the third principle was to foster greater participation of member associations and stakeholders, where FIFA should transform its standing committees by way of reducing them from 26 to nine to improve efficiency and ensure that all member association were involved in a meaningful gender-balanced efficient way in decision making process.

He said the FIFA statues shall provide that the right to host the men’s World Cup shall not be awarded to members of the same confederation for two consecutive editions. Ends