Fifa wants Teixeira replaced 'immediately'

Ricardo Teixeira. Photo By Reuters Image

By supersport.com

Ricardo Teixeira must be replaced "immediately" on the Fifa executive committee by the South American confederation, football's world governing body said on Tuesday.

Teixeira resigned his Fifa seat for "personal reasons" without elaborating on Monday, one week after leaving as president of Brazil's football body and the 2014 World Cup organising committee, citing unspecified health problems.

Fifa said its statutes require the South American body, known as CONMEBOL, to move quickly.

"CONMEBOL will now have to decide immediately on the replacement of Ricardo Teixeira as one of their representatives on the Fifa executive committee for the remaining period of office," Fifa said in a statement.

Fifa's 24-member ruling panel chaired by president Sepp Blatter meets next week in Zurich, though the embattled Teixeira was not expected to attend.

Blatter's promised anti-corruption reforms are set to be high on the agenda, as the committee is due to receive a report from a panel of experts advising Fifa how to be more democratic, transparent and rigorous in its investigations.

The 64-year-old Teixeira skipped the previous meeting of Fifa's high command, held in Tokyo in December, when Blatter had hoped to publish a Swiss court document relating to a scandal involving million-dollar kickbacks from World Cup broadcasting deals in the 1990s.

Teixeira is widely reported to be implicated in the scandal, but publication of the dossier was delayed because of a legal process brought by unidentified parties before Switzerland's supreme court.

Teixeira had two years left in the elected post he held since 1994 representing the 10 South American football nations at Fifa.

CONMEBOL has three Fifa seats and traditionally elects one member from each of Brazil and Argentina.

It could send an interim replacement to Zurich for the March 29-30 session, until an election can be held.

Fifa's executive committee already has one interim member and a vacant seat.

Asia has sent Chinese official Zhang Jilong in place of its confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam, who was banned for life by Fifa in an election bribery scandal last year.

Bin Hammam can't be formally replaced until his appeal challenging the ban is decided by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Qatari official will face Fifa in the Lausanne, Switzerland, court on April 18-19.

Fifa is also without a Caribbean delegate, as the CONCACAF confederation has not replaced disgraced former president Jack Warner who resigned all of his football duties last June to avoid investigation alongside Bin Hammam in the bribery scandal.

CONCACAF's 35 member countries are scheduled to elect a new president on May 23 in Budapest, ahead of the Fifa Congress in the Hungarian capital. The deadline for candidate nominations is Sunday.