FIFA's head of of auditing and compliance Domenico Scala has resigned in protest at reforms made in the football governing body.
Scala has resigned as the independent governing bodies at the organisation have lost their independence following a resolution passed on Friday that gave FIFA the power to appoint and sack those in charge of its committees, including auditing, finance and ethics.
The resolution was passed on a vote of 186 to one.
FIFA are still recovering from the scandals that have rocked the organistaion in recent times, with the ethics committee playing a key role in pushing through bans for more than a dozen high ranking officials, including that of former president Sepp Blatter, UEFA chief Michel Platini and ex-secretary general Jerome Valcke.
Scala said the new rule “undermines a central pillar of the good governance of Fifa and it destroys a substantial achievement of the reforms“.
“It will henceforth be possible for the council to impede investigations against single members at any time, by dismissing the responsible committee members or by keeping them acquiescent through the threat of a dismissal,” added Scala.
“The bodies are factually deprived of their independence and are in danger of becoming auxiliary agents of those whom they should actually supervise.“
Scala was also the guy who set Infantino's pay and decided it should be lower than his secretary general's...
— Ben Rumsby (@ben_rumsby) May 14, 2016
The vote happened late in Friday’s meeting, the first since Gianni Infantino was elected as president in February.
Fifa passed a number of reforms aimed at avoiding a repeat of the corruption scandal that has seen 42 football officials and entities indicted in the United States.
“We are following a democratic process,” Infantino told reporters after the vote on Friday.
“If we don’t act we are criticised and if we do act we are criticised, but we should also be criticised if we act in the wrong way. Do we wait one year for congress to dismiss committee members who should be changed?
“We need to be flexible to accomplish all the changes.”
During the congress, Fifa elected its first female secretary general with the appointment of Senegal's Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura.
She succeeds Valcke, who in February was banned from football-related activity for 12 years.
The full statement can be read below.
BREAKING: Blow to new President Infantino as FIFA reformer Domenico Scala resigns in protest at Council empowerment pic.twitter.com/VjCiROdasx
— Dan Roan (@danroan) May 14, 2016
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