FIFA Ethics Committee to have bidding role

FIFA's newly formed Ethics Committee is to be given a role in future World Cup bidding procedures, according to a statement by the committee's chairman Sebastian Coe.

Following a meeting with FIFA president Sepp Blatter in Zurich yesterday, Coe said the committee would "discuss its role in the bidding process for the 2018 FIFA World Cup" when it holds its first working meeting in December.

The statement, published on FIFA's website (www.fifa.org), gave no further details as to the precise role of the Ethics Committee in the bidding process.

No timeframe has yet been set for the 2018 World Cup bids with FIFA's Executive Committee yet to decide if it will eventually stick with its current practice of rotating World Cups by continent.

Coe said the committee would also take a decision over "irregularities" in the selection of Kenyan match officials for FIFA's 2007 list of international referees.

The controversial settlement reached with former secretary general Urs Linsi will not be on the agenda, however.

Switzerland's Sonntags Zeitung newspaper last month claimed that Linsi had received a payout of around eight million Swiss Francs from FIFA after managing to secure an eight-year renewal of his contract shortly before his dismissal.

According to yesterday's statement, the issue was only "touched upon" during the meeting and would instead be taken up by FIFA's executive committee at the end of October.

FIFA's Ethics Committee was formed in September 2006 following the executive committee's approval of a new Code of Ethics.

Its only previous official meeting came shortly after the committee was founded and did not examine any specific cases.