Bern - Swiss lawmakers gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to a law to make it easier to investigate corruption allegations at sporting bodies located in Switzerland, a vote that coincided with the worst scandal to ever hit soccer's ruling body Fifa.
The law would end a system under which Fifa, and roughly 60 other sporting bodies based there, are immune from investigation by Swiss authorities when instances of corruption are deemed an internal matter with no impact the wider public interest.
It would affect bodies included the International Olympic Committee and the International Cycling Union, but is so closely associated with the soccer body that it has been dubbed “Lex Fifa” (“the Fifa Law”) due to longstanding concerns that scandals at the Zurich-based organisation would eventually taint Switzerland's international reputation.
Roland Buechel, a right-wing Swiss People's Party politician who has led the campaign to increase oversight of the sporting bodies, said: “Today the Senate voted that corruption as we know it in the case of Fifa will be a criminal offence.”
Swiss authorities launched a criminal probe last week into Fifa's awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. That happened on the same day that the United States announced its investigation into alleged financial wrongdoing stretching back more than two decades.
The scandal pushed Fifa's once unassailable head, Sepp Blatter, a 79-year-old Swiss man, to resign, with sources telling Reuters and US media that he was himself being investigated by US authorities, something that has not been formally confirmed.
The dozens of Swiss-based sporting bodies are set up as non-profit associations, the same structure that governs everything from neighbourhood gardening groups to pet-breeding clubs, and are largely unregulated by any Swiss agency.
The Swiss attorney general, who is looking into the bids for the next two World Cups, welcomed the bill's progress.
“Of course it would be helpful to have a legal basis in order to be in a position to tackle whatever form of international bribery and corruption in a more efficient way,” Andre Marty, spokesman for the attorney general, said.
Anti-corruption campaigners have pushed Swiss authorities for years to bring the sporting bodies - once a source of national prestige - under more legal scrutiny. Many say the draft law is insufficient and was further watered down by the upper house on Wednesday.
Lawmakers voted by 23 to 22 for a clause saying that allegations of corruption - beyond those affecting the public interest - could only be prosecuted if the organisation itself requests it.
“We tried to improve things in terms of fighting corruption, and missed by one vote,” said Christian Levrat, president of the left-wing Social Democratic Party and a member of a parliamentary commission looking into corruption.
Levrat said he hoped the clause would be struck out by the lower chamber which will review the bill in September. The law is not expected to go into force until 2016 or 2017.
Reuters