FIFA Orders Officials to Hand Back Luxury Watches
The Investigatory Chamber of FIFA's Ethics Committee ordered officials of football's world governing body to return the luxury watches gifted to them by Brazilian Football Confederation.
FIFA officials were on Thursday given until October 24 to hand back luxury watches offered as 'gifts' by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF).
The order was handed down by the Investigatory Chamber of FIFA's Ethics Committee.
A statement said that the CBF handed out "65 gift bags each containing a Parmigiani watch, to a group comprising the 28 officials on the FIFA Executive Committee, a representative from each of the 32 Member Associations competing in the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, and a representative from each of the 10 Member Associations in (South American Federation) Conmebol."
The gifts were distributed to coincide with the FIFA Congress and the start of the World Cup in Brazil in June, with the CBF claiming they had obtained the watches at a cost of $8,750 (5,334 Pounds, 6,774 euros) each.
The Investigatory Chamber of the game's world governing body said that an independent appraisal determined that one of the watches was worth 25,000 Swiss Francs ($26,748) on the market.
They declared that the CBF "should not have offered the watches, and...either returned it or...reported the matter to the Investigatory Chamber."
They added that they "will not pursue further formal ethics proceedings in this matter against officials who submit the Parmigiani watch they received from CBF to the Secretariat of the Investigatory Chamber by no later than October 24, 2014."
Following that deadline, all watches submitted to the Investigatory Chamber "will be donated to an independent non-profit organization or organizations committed to corporate social responsibility projects in Brazil."