Coe set for FIFA role

Sebastian Coe is to become FIFA’s chief watchdog overseeing the bidding process for the 2018 World Cup.

Coe is chairman of FIFA’s ethics committee and it is understood that president Sepp Blatter wants Coe, who is also chairman of the London 2012 Olympics organising committee, to be in charge of making sure the bidding rules are followed.

England are certain to be among those bidding for the finals but the fact he is also English should not prevent Coe fulfilling the role – the IOC’s ethics commission’s leading official is a French magistrate, Paquerette Girard-Zappelli, who was in charge when Paris and London were both bidding for the 2012 Olympics.

Coe met Blatter in Zurich yesterday and the ethics committee’s role in the 2018 campaign will be formalised in December.

FIFA are expected to end rotation of the World Cup hosts at the end of this month, opening the way for an England bid for 2018, with Australia and China likely rivals.

Allegations of corruption in the selection process of Kenyan referees for FIFA’s international list should also be decided by the ethics committee in December.

Coe said: “At the meeting in December the committee will discuss its role in the bidding process for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the outcome of discussions I had with FIFA over the last few months about the working structure of the ethics committee.

“In the upcoming meeting scheduled for December, I would also like to bring to decision one of the issues, namely the irregularities that occurred in the selection of Kenyan referees.”

Coe also met representatives of the FIFA’s Early Warning System company, which was set up to target corruption and irregular betting in football, for an update on preparations for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers.

Coe and Blatter also briefly discussed the £3.3m pay-off to the world governing body’s former general secretary Urs Linsi.

Linsi was given eight years’ salary as a settlement after being forced out of FIFA in June.

There are serious concerns among FIFA’s top brass at the circumstances surrounding how Linsi managed to secure a new eight-year contract in April worth £415,000 annually at a time when his whole future was under question.

A FIFA statement said: “The settlement regarding former general secretary Urs Linsi was only touched upon as the FIFA president will refer this matter to the executive committee when it meets at the end of October.”