FIFA Presidential candidate Jerome Champagne discarded confrontation as one of the angles in his campaign to succeed Joseph Blatter. The French diplomat stated FIFA has an image crisis, but he would rather build on what's been good in Blatter's administration than destroying the man's reputation.
"I fully recognise that we have a very grave image problem. If you look at my programme I want reforms to correct this problem. We are also making clear statements on how I want to govern FIFA in terms of style in terms of ethics and in terms of transparency," Champagne said.
"I think it's very easy to blame one person for the responsibility of a collective group. It always easy to to join a campaign against a structure, ignoring the behaviour of the other structures. I think it's more important to explain what you want to do and that's exactly what I'm doing," the candidate added.
Nevertheless, Champagne was adamant pointing out Blatter's responsibility in the recent scandals FIFA has been involved, and stated his opinion on how football's governing body should be led.
"I believe we need a stronger FIFA. Mr Blatter has a responsibility because the World Cup bid scandals took place on his watch, but it is a collective responsibility of the Executive Committee and that's what I want to change. For me, FIFA is a federation of national associations, not of vague continental bureaucracies which think only of their own continental competitions," Champagne ended.
