May 21, 2021

A former Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Ayotunde Phillips, has been re-elected as a member of the FIFA Ethics Committee for another four-year term in office.

Her re-election was ratified at the virtual 71st FIFA Congress held in Zurich, Switzerland on Friday.

The election followed a motion – to sanction the proposal to elect members of the committee – read at the congress by FIFA President, Gianni Infantino.

“The congress was asked to approve the proposal to elect the persons whose names are presented on the screen (see the screengrab below) as members of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the Ethics Committee four a term of office of four years,” said Infantino, who chaired the congress.

Two hundred and nine members were entitled to cast their votes in the election, but 203 were counted as valid votes cast – six votes short of the total figure.

A further breakdown of the figure showed that a significant number of members voted in favour of the motion while just a few others were against it.

Addressing the congress, FIFA Secretary-General, Fatma Samoura, said, “The total number of valid votes cast for this motion was 203, of which 199 voted in favour of the motion while four member associations rejected the motion.

“For that motion, we needed a simple majority of valid votes of 102; so this is a very comfortable yes for the election of the members of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee.”

Justice Phillips was elected along with four other members – Mohammad Ali Al Kamali of the United Arab Emirates, and Malta’s Stefan Buontempo.

Other members of the committee were Pamela Camus of Chile, Gregory Delzin of Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Michael Goodwin of Papua New Guinea.

At the congress, Vassilios Skouris of Greece was re-elected as the chairperson of the committee for another four-year term.

He polled 137 of the total valid votes cast to beat his French counterpart, Jean-Michel Marmayou, and three other contenders.

Maria Claudia Rojas from Colombia and Fiti Sunia of American Samoa, who both scored seven votes in the chairmanship category, garnered 151 and 146 votes respectively to emerge as the deputy chairpersons of the committee.