Consider external candidate to succeed Blatter, Bach says

By Karolos Grohmann BERLIN (Reuters) - International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has waded into the FIFA crisis, suggesting the body to look outside football for an "external candidate" to succeed the suspended Sepp Blatter. In a strongly worded, rare intervention into the FIFA affair, Bach placed pressure on the troubled football organisation saying change was long overdue. "They must do two things immediately: they must accelerate and deepen the reform process in order to comply with accountability, transparency and all the principles of good governance," he said. "They should also be open for a credible external presidential candidate of high integrity, to accomplish the necessary reforms and bring back stability and credibility to FIFA." FIFA's rules say that to be a candidate for president an individual must have been involved in the game actively for two of the past five years, as well as presenting nominations from five national associations. Those rules severely limit the opportunities for a candidate from outside of the existing football organisations. The only way those rules could be changed is through reform of FIFA's statutes, which can only be done at a FIFA congress. The next congress is on Feb. 26, when the next president is to be elected. Nominations for the post close on Oct. 26. Bach said, however, that FIFA need to do much more than just elect a new president. "Enough is enough. We hope that now, finally, everyone at FIFA has at last understood that they cannot continue to remain passive. They must act swiftly to regain credibility because you cannot forever dissociate the credibility of FIFA from the credibility of football," he said. "FIFA must realise that this is now about more than just a list of candidates. This is also a structural problem and will not be solved simply by the election of a new president." (Editing by Ossian Shine and Alison Williams)