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Transparency International's Gareth Sweeney explains to Goal how the sport's disgraced world governing body can regain the trust of the people.
Trust in Fifa is at a record low following 2015's corruption scandals. The sport was severely shaken by FBI arrests, World Cup bribery allegations, and Fifa's own president being banned from football for six years.
"I'd say football's a broken sport at the moment, that's clear," Gareth Sweeney, the editor of the corruption in sport report, told Goal. "We all agree that there's a lot of corrupt individuals in football as was evidenced by the FBI indictments last year.
"The perception of football is corrupted; confidence in football is extremely low. Without question, the perception of Fifa is of an administrative organisation that is a corrupt body which doesn't work."
But it's easy to pillory Fifa for its shortcomings without proposing the changes it needs to make. That's why, based on our interview with Sweeney, Goal has compiled a six-step plan on how Fifa can stop self-destructing and fix football.
The first step Fifa must take to save itself is passing the reform bill that sits on the agenda for Friday's Extraordinary Fifa Congress in Zurich. This bill proposes sweeping changes within world football's governing body.
It was given the green light at December's Executive Committee meeting and it's essential that Fifa's 209 associations ensure it is enacted with immediate effect.
"I don't think we're beyond the point of no return," said Sweeney, "but we're definitely at risk of football losing its global appeal. We're absolutely at a tipping point now and the next days are very important both in the election of the president and in the passing of the reform statute."
Changes tabled in the reform include presidency terms being restricted to a maximum of 12 years, increased gender diversity, integrity checks for all Fifa members, and greater transparency across the board.
"Fifa [needs to be] seen to be doing good - not only what is being done, but what is seen to be done - to restore public trust properly," Reject a full reform and the public perception will remain in the pits.
Fifa has been widely ridiculed in recent years for the way its suspended members are judged by an Ethics Committee consisting of its own employees; individuals with vested interests.
Policing itself from within has clearly not worked based on the number of football figures being accused of unethical behaviour. Fifa needs autonomous judges of character to clean up its act.
"For people to trust that it's working, you want to have an independent advisory and oversight committee to assist the Fifa Council in finalising all the detail," Sweeney said. "It's really important, I hope it isn't overlooked."
The reform statute being tabled has a fully independent audit and compliance committee which would review and approve the president and his or her 36 Council members. If created, Fifa can bid adieu to cries of foul play.
But Sweeney warned: "If [Fifa] don't pass this resolution then I don't think it's fulfilling its responsibility. Public pressure demands that they realise what needs to be done. It would in every way be a retrograde step if not to adopt that, I don't think it could be justified."
Transparency International tried to assist Fifa in ending its corruption pandemic in 2011 but cut its ties when then-president Sepp Blatter ignored the anti-corruption body's recommendations.
One of those decisions made by Fifa was a refusal to investigate old bribery scandals. Sweeney, who has worked for TI for five and a half years, slammed such a mentality of ignoring hard truths and "continuing the culture of patronage".
"I think that at the highest level that there was a culture of denial that only right at the very end has been maintained by them," he said. "Fifa needs a sense of responsibility, humility, and candour in relation to how it acknowledges institution decisions; [it needs] to turn a corner, basically."
This attitude of sweeping everything under the carpet is prevalent in the ongoing presidential campaign. One of the favourites to win Blatter's old seat is Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, a man accused by many respected organisations of identifying and imprisoning Bahraini footballers who took part in pro-democracy demonstrations five years ago. He strenuously denies this.
"The question is who is the appropriate person for Fifa who can advance public trust," Sweeney stressed. "Personally I'd argue that Football Associations should be made to announce in advance which presidential candidates they're supporting and why. Voting should be done on what that presidential candidate stands for. But the process of voting itself illustrates the difficulty at Fifa to widely reform."
Figures on Fifa's own website state that over 30 million women play football around the world. It's an incongruous fact, then, that women play almost no role in decision-making at the top end of the sport.
"Fifa should absolutely be looking to get more women involved at football's higher levels," Sweeney said. "It's clear that Fifa's a boys club, it's clearly inadequate." Unfortunately, as Sweeney explains, even if the reform statutes are passed this week, dragging the six confederations into the 21st century is proving to be a tough task.
"Now the reforms will change the Executive Committee to a Fifa Council and it requires the federation to put forward a woman for election. It's an improvement but, interestingly, if the confederations don't put forward a woman to the council then the seats remain empty on the council.
"It could be even more robustly required of them to make sure women are properly represented - I don't understand why there's an allowance to keep the seat empty! An entire confederation unable to find an appropriate woman to run for election in the seat.
"I think the fact that this allowance is provided shows how disconnected the confederations are; the very notion that you could allow a confederation not to find a single woman to be elected illustrates how deep the problem of gender imbalance runs in Fifa. For the rest of us it's just common sense."
According to a poll of over 25,000 released this week by TI, 69 per cent of football fans have no confidence in Fifa. And why would they? It's frustrating to watch the sport you love being run by politicians who aren't democratically elected - especially when many of these men are linked to corruption, fraud and other crimes.
Fifa is insistent that football fans should not be involved in the voting process but Sweeney thinks supporters - and all those with financial ties to the game - deserve a bigger say.
"Something that is important is the participation of stakeholders in governing Fifa," he said. "That sponsors, governments, players, representatives and, I'd highlight, supporters are better represented.
"They need to know their concerns are listened to and that they're given adequate responses from associations. Fifa generally don't consider supporters to be stakeholders, they're not an immediate part of the football family. We'd like to see that change, we'd like to see representatives of the football supporters.
"We recognise it would be extraordinarily complex as to how you could identify someone to speak on behalf of the supporters. But still the principle should be respected that supporters are an essential stakeholder in world football."
Whether its Sheikh Salman or Gianni Infantino who wins the Fifa presidential race on Friday, all eyes will be on how they handle the ongoing World Cup bidding fiasco.
The bidding processes for the Russia and Qatar World Cup finals are subject to Swiss criminal investigations. The 2022 edition, in particular, has faced continuous criticism for its December schedule and allegations of immigrant workers at stadia being treated negligently.
"The bidding criteria for the World Cup are clearly inadequate," Sweeney said. "If there was a legitimate election then it would illustrate the shortcomings in the World Cup process because of the absence of the sufficient criteria to ensure that labour rights are respected.
"To Fifa's credit, it is working on the matter of human rights, it's strengthening the criteria for future World Cups. And Fifa has a responsibility to ensure that anti-corruption and anti-human rights safeguards are not only in place, but enforced. It's not just a question of 'did their bidding criteria meet the safeguards?' but seeing that they are upheld - from the point of awarding the World Cup to its completion."
The Fifa structural reform process put the World Cup bidding revamp on hold. Whoever is elected president on February 26 can either push forward to the commendation of the general public, or continue the organisation's shameless burying tactics to the condemnation of everyone but themselves.
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