Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Whittingdale
I was one of those Members. This was a matter that the Select Committee investigated three or four years ago. At that time, we expressed our profound dissatisfaction. We should give credit to the English FA for leading the campaign for change. Under the leadership of David Bernstein, before Greg Dyke, the FA made it plain that Sepp Blatter should not continue. That view received very little support then, but we have been drawing attention to the accusations and allegations of corruption within FIFA for some considerable time.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Newcastle is home to some of the most passionate football fans in the world, and the re-election of Sepp Blatter is a betrayal of that passion. The Secretary of State has implied that most of the support for Sepp Blatter comes from the African and Asian continents. Why is that and what can he and football fans do to address that?
Mr Whittingdale
It is a system whereby each country—there are 209 of them—has one vote. Some of those countries are small with very few resources of their own. There is no doubt that FIFA provides considerable resources to support football in such countries. It is a system that is almost designed to ensure that support can be bought. Therefore, what is required is not just a change of leadership but a fundamental reform of the way FIFA operates.