FIFA

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, unfortunately I did not have the pleasure of reading my noble friend’s column today. Perhaps I may repeat something that I said on Thursday:

“These revelations have shown how important it is for sports bodies to uphold the highest standards of governance, transparency and accountability”.—[Official Report, 28/5/15; col. 56.]

That is what it is all about, as I think the noble Lord was saying.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that this demonstrates that government cannot remove itself from these issues to do with worldwide sport and has to remain fully committed? Should that not be a lesson that we learned from the Olympic experience—the fact that Governments are required to make sure that it is done properly? If we try to stand back again, we will merely get the same problems over and over again.

[The Earl of Courtown]

I think I can agree in part with what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said. However, it is up to FIFA and UEFA to get their house in order. They run football.