Samoura’s appointment great for football — or is it?

The 54-year-old Senegalese woman's appointment as FIFA general secretary on Friday was too good to be true

Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura’s appointment as the FIFA general secretary on Friday was too good to be true.

FIFA, brandishing the agenda of bringing a change after a corruption scandal rocked the world football governing body, chose the perfect candidate to signal the start of a new era.

But instead of sending out what FIFA must have intended as a positive message to the world to gain some respite from the scandal, the announcement reeked of desperate face-saving.

It is one thing for an organisation to be serious about making amends, but FIFA made its intention to bring change looks all the more fickle when they opted to hand the second most-powerful position in global football to a person who has absolutely no experience in the field.



Add to that the fact that she is the first female general secretary in FIFA’s 111-year history and the first Muslim as well, which shows that FIFA is trying a bit too hard to try to limit the damage done by its previous management.

And in trying too hard, they are setting a dangerous trend for others to follow.

Samoura, the UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator and the UNDP Resident Representative in Nigeria, is a respectable woman in her field and has spent 21 good years of her life with the UN, but she has absolutely no experience when it comes to football.

While it is true to her approach forward would be more upfront, her selection has set the precedent that hand-picking of officials, rather than following the electoral process, is acceptable within FIFA.



And with that approach, they are sending the message that there are no set criteria that FIFA follows for appointing officials and this particular behaviour can have far-reaching consequences, especially in third-world countries like Pakistan.

Given the fact that this was an opportunity for FIFA to start afresh and establish a system for all, this appointment will only breed more corruption around the world.

Countries like Pakistan, where a transparent system is not in place and especially where people who have no relation to football run the affairs, will be encouraged to get ‘their own’ officials, who have specific agendas, selected rather than work for the betterment of football in the country.



So FIFA, for all its promises of ushering in a new era, has decided to hand-pick their own official who has more power than the now banned previous general secretary, Jerome Valcke, had.

How they will be able to regulate it, only time will tell, but given that Domenico Scala, chairman of the FIFA Audit and Compliance Committee, resigned from his post citing disagreement with the reforms FIFA intends to impose — FIFA Council to be above FIFA committees which include auditing, compliance and ethics committee — the signs do not look too good.

So while Samoura really does tick all the boxes for the perfect candidate, only with time will be able to judge whether FIFA is moving in the right direction or brewing another scandal ready to be exposed.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2016.

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