FIFA warned Brazil on Sunday that if its football body intervenes in the election of a new president in January, it may suspend its national teams and clubs from international competitions.
FIFA threatened to suspend Brazil’s soccer organisation, CBF, in a letter to a soccer executive there if the organisation disregarded its advice to wait and instead called a hasty election to succeed Ednaldo Rodrigues as president.
Due to anomalies in Rodrigues’ election from the previous year, a Rio de Janeiro court removed him from office on December 7 along with all of his CBF appointees. Last week, that decision was upheld by Brazil’s two highest courts.
FIFA, the body that oversees football, has a history of rejecting intervention from the government and outside parties in its member associations. As a result, Brazil, the five-time World Cup winners, may be excluded from important competitions until the crisis is resolved.
José Perdiz, the head of Brazil’s highest sports court, was also named as an intervenor in the Rio court ruling in the organization of setting up new presidential elections within 30 working days. In earlier correspondence with CBF, FIFA stated that it believed the intervention to be excessive.
The chief members’ association officer of FIFA, Kenny Jean-Marie, and the deputy secretary-general of CONMEBOL, Monserrat Jiménez Garcia, signed the letter on Sunday.
In the letter, FIFA and South American football organisation CONMEBOL also stated that they would set up a commission to meet in Brazil on January 8 to discuss the issue.
