Fifa chief misses goal-line technology summit

(GETTY IMAGES)

FIFA's general secretary, Jérôme Valcke, has cancelled a visit to today's goal-line technology meeting in Wales to deal with the corruption crisis.

The Frenchman was due to attend the International Football Association Board business meeting at Celtic Manor but now he will send other officials to meet the chief executive of the four British associations who with Fifa make up the game's law-making body.

Valcke will instead be in Zurich where Fifa's ethics committee are today to hear the case of two Fifa executive committee members, Nigeria's Amos Adamu and Tahiti's Reynald Temarii, who it is claimed asked undercover reporters for cash in return for their World Cup votes.

The ethics body is also to investigate whether at least two countries campaigning to host the 2018 and or 2022 tournaments breached bidding rules. Both the two men and the countries involved could be suspended by the ethics committee.

England are bidding for 2018 against Russia, Spain-Portugal and the netherlands- Belgium while the 2022 hosts will be from Australia, the United States, Qatar, Japan and South Korea.

Meanwhile, in Wales, it is expected the International Board meeting will take the first steps towards introducing goal-line technology, possibly by appointing an independent company to test the 13 systems that have put themselves forward to Fifa. However, no major decisions will be taken until the full board meeting in March.

One of the two Fifa executive members at the centre of the scandal insists he is innocent and that his recorded remarks were taken out of context. Temarii, a Fifa vice-president and head of the Oceania Football Confederation, told the insideworldfootball.biz website: "I have no intention of resigning and have asked for a personal hearing."

The Sunday Times recorded Temarii asking for £1.5m to fund a sports academy but he insists this was taken out of context. He added: "I will prove I am an honest man. The ethics committee will tell me if I am right or wrong. I know what I did. And I know what I have to do. You have only heard 15 seconds of the interview."