ZURICH (REUTERS) - Fifa's culture must change if it is to reclaim its credibility as an open and honest organisation, one of its own senior officials told delegates at its annual congress on Friday.
After Fifa president Sepp Blatter had spoken at the start of proceedings, repeating his nautical analogies about steering the good ship Fifa back to calm waters, Domenico Scala, chairman of the audit and compliance committee, issued a stark warning.
"A change of culture within Fifa is essential if the organisation is to eliminate improper conduct," the Swiss-Italian told delegates, adding that the change had to be articulated by football's leaders.
Fifa was rocked on Wednesday when seven officials were arrested in an early morning raid in Zurich as part of a joint United States-Swiss investigation into widespread malpractice involving a wide-ranging spread of Fifa activities since the early 1990s.
Scala told delegates that Fifa had restructured many of its internal bodies, with greater controls and limits, in a bid to stop the proliferation of corruption.