Fifa to re-examine bribes inquiry, says Sepp Blatter

Fifa has asked an external committee to lead a new investigation into the collapse of a former marketing partner.

Documents relating to the case are believed to show senior Fifa officials were paid kickbacks in return for granting World Cup television and sponsorship rights during the 1990s.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter said: "This is an issue which has been raised by the national associations and members."

He also announced the creation of three 'task forces' to drive through reforms.

Blatter said the executive committee will examine the documents relating to the company, International Sport and Leisure, at a meeting in Tokyo in December.

World football's governing body has repeatedly blocked attempts by journalists to have the documents released.

Last year, lawyers acting for Fifa and its senior officials paid 5.5m Swiss francs (£3.9m) to settle the case and keep their identities secret.

But last November a BBC Panorama investigation claimed that the two officials were former Fifa president Joao Havelange and his son-in-law Ricardo Teixeira, a Fifa executive committee member and chairman of the World Cup organising committee for Brazil 2014.

The programme said Teixeira received £6m in bribes via a front company called Sanud which was registered in the tax haven of Liechtenstein.

The Brazilian Fraud Squad has now opened an investigation into the allegations. Reports say it wants to make a request to the Swiss courts to have the documents released as part of its inquiries.

Regarding the ISL case, Blatter said: "The executive committee has at my request agreed that in the meeting of 16-17 December we will re-open this file.

"If there are any measures to be taken they will not be taken by the executive committee - it is not the body that can take sanctions or release anyone

"So we will give this file to an independent organisation outside of Fifa so they can delve into this file and extract its conclusions and present them to us."

Blatter also detailed an overhaul of Fifa's ethics bodies and expanded on the three "task forces" and a good governance committee to drive through reforms.

He laid out a two-year timetable for implementing the reforms. The governance committee would include representatives of clubs, leagues, players, referees and women's football.

One task force would look into changes to the FIFA statutes, a second would look at changes to the ethics committee and a third would be responsible for introducing changes to make FIFA more transparent.

These would be added to an existing task force aimed at making the sport itself more attractive in time for the 2014 World Cup.

All proposals were passed by the executive committee and Blatter said he wanted concrete results by the time of the FIFA Congress in June 2013.

Blatter said Fifa's road-map for the future was ambitious but he was pleased with the progress made thus far.

"We are moving forward with a Fifa that, thanks to the good governance committee, which is a bit of a watchdog and will allow us in 2013, maybe even before, to present an image slightly better than the one we have currently.

"We want a fair image, which shows the will of the Fifa leadership to not dwell on the past, to face up to its problems and find solutions. Tackling problems isn't enough, we need to find solutions."