World football governing body, FIFA, on Friday passed a package of reforms at an extraordinary congress in Zurich, Switzerland.
The reforms include the disclosure of salaries and a four-year limit on a president’s term as football’s world governing body seeks to recover from a corruption crisis.
A new council will also replace the current executive committee, featuring a female representative from each confederation.
Later on Friday, the federation will elect a new president to replace Sepp Blatter, who held the position since 1998 and quit last June immediately after securing another four-year term.
The five candidates in Friday’s election are Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, Gianni Infantino, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Tokyo Sexwale and Jerome Champagne.
The election process was expected to begin at 12:00 GMT, but several rounds of voting might be required before a winner is known.
“We stand united in our determination to put things right, so that the focus can return to football once again,” said acting FIFA President Issa Hayatou.
“The hard work of restoring trust and improving how we work begins now.
“This will create a system of stronger governance and greater diversity that will give football a strong foundation on which to thrive. And it will deter future wrongdoing.’’
In the new reforms passed, the disclosure of salaries will happen on an annual basis for the FIFA president.
The same will also apply to all FIFA council members, the Secretary-General and relevant chairpersons of independent standing and judicial committees.
The FIFA president’s tenure has also now been limited to three terms of four years, FIFA council members and members of the audit and compliance committee and the judicial bodies.
Blatter served five terms as president, dating back to 1998.
In order to ensure separation of political and managerial functions, the elected FIFA council will replace the executive committee and will be responsible for setting the organisation’s overall strategic direction.
The general secretariat will oversee the operational and commercial actions needed to implement the strategy.
Also, in order to promote women in football, a minimum of one female representative will be elected as a council member per confederation.
Meanwhile, around two dozen men showed up at the venue for the FIFA congress early Friday, voicing and showing support for Bahrain’s Sheikh Ibrahim Khalifa who is running for the presidency of the ruling football body later in the day.
They held placards with the slogans “Supporting the clean man’’ and “FIFA will be safe with Salman’’ at the Hallenstadion venue in Zurich.
It remained unclear whether the message was real as one activist, who said he was from Senegal, admitted he didn’t care about it.
The report said that a self-acclaimed human rights activist from Bahrain tried to prevent journalists from speaking with the others.
“He said he was a human rights activist from Bahrain and others also said they were from Bahrain,’’ it said.
The Asian football Chief, Sheikh Salman has been under fire from human rights groups who say he was involved in arrests and possible torture of players around pro-democracy protests in Bahrain in 2011.
However, Sheikh Salman has denied the accusations.
The extraordinary FIFA congress is to elect a new president from five candidates later Friday to succeed banned Joseph Blatter.
Sheikh Salman and Swiss UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino are seen as the frontrunners in the vote among the 207 members.
