25 October,2010 09:11 AM IST | | AFP
Former FIFA General Secretary Michel Zen- Ruffinen told AFP yesterday that he had the impression some FIFA executive committee members "could be influenced" in the race to host the World Cup.
The Sunday Times reported that Zen-Ruffinen had identified who could take money in exchange for votes on bids to host football's World Cup in 2018 and 2022 with undercover reporters, who were posing as lobbyists.
Zen-Ruffinen, now a lawyer and football agent, saidu00a0 he was outraged at being tricked and insisted he had not directly introduced those members to the fake lobbyists, who claimed they were working for the US bid.
Nonethless he said that there was an underlying issue that still needed to be tackled.
"The problem is that there is an endemic problem in terms of corruption in sports and also in politics," said Zen-Ruffinen, who left world football's governing body eight years ago.
"The stakes are enormous. It's extremely difficult to eradicate it and the only solution when a case like that occurs is to have an external body tackle it, it's too difficult to deal with that internally."
FIFA has provisionally suspended two senior officials and launched its own investigation over alleged World Cup vote selling ahead of the announcement of the winning host countries for 2018 and 2022 on December 2.
