Fifa Drops Age limit Proposal.

 
Fifa's executive committee led by 77-year-old president Sepp Blatter has dropped a proposal to impose age limits and restricted terms of office from a reform package due to be discussed at its Congress on Friday.
The decision to defer for a year the debate on limiting mandates for senior officials was agreed by the committee after its meeting on the Indian Ocean island on Tuesday.

It comes a day after Blatter, who could stand for re-election in two years' time aged 79 under present rules, said the proposed age limits could be considered a form of discrimination.
Blatter was opposed to the idea put forward by Fifa's Independent Governance Committee (IGC) which has prepared the reforms to be decided this week.
A Fifa statement read: "As no consensus has been reached among the member associations and their confederations on the agenda items "term of office" and "age limit", a more thorough analysis is required.
"Therefore, both items will be examined further and the Congress will be asked to put them back on the agenda of the 2014 Fifa Congress with concrete proposals."

On Monday, Blatter told Fifa's website (www.fifa.com): "It's not up to me, we are in a democratic process with the member associations voting.
"However, personally, I've already said I was against the age limit as I believe it is not a relevant criteria, not everyone is the same at 60, 70, 80, etc. It could even be seen as discriminatory. Passion makes the difference."
Blatter, who could seek a fifth mandate as Fifa president after he turns 79 in 2015, also referred to the proposal to limit the number of terms officials can serve, which is unlimited.
"I am not against a limitation of a number of mandates, this rule applies in many democracies in fact. But then it should apply to everybody," he said.

 
ANTI-RACISM MEASURES
The executive committee endorsed all the other reform proposals which will be submitted to a vote on Friday.
This week's Congress represents the final stage of the reform process begun by Blatter two years ago, following last year's gathering in Budapest when the first tranche of reforms were agreed in principle.
The executive committee on Tuesday also endorsed proposals made by the new Fifa Task Force Against Racism and Discrimination, chaired by Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb, president of CONCACAF, the confederation responsible for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Webb is expected to tell Congress they are seeking minimum five-match bans, warnings, fines and having offending teams play behind closed doors.
He is also expected to call for tougher sanctions against those reoffending, including points deductions, expulsions from competitions or relegation.
Away from the reforms, Fifa revealed huge interest from countries bidding to host its various competitions, including the World Under-20 Cup in 2017 with bids from 10 countries - Bahrain, France, South Korea, Mexico, Poland, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tunisia and Ukraine.

Four countries - India, Ireland, South Africa and Uzbekistan - are bidding to stage the World Under-17 Cup in the same year with the hosts for those tournaments due to be announced in December.
Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay, the new president of the South American confederation CONMEBOL, was appointed as the chairman of the Organising Committee for the World Cup in Brazil.
A request from Yemen's FA for Fifa to lift its ban on friendly and official matches was rejected for security reasons.