FIFA on Thursday announced
the composition of the 22-member Task Force Football 2014, which also includes
World Cup winners Bobby Charlton, Cafu and Christian Karembeu.
The task force is a pet
project of FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who said last year it would help create
“a more attractive” World Cup than was seen in South Africa.
“This vastly experienced team
will address every facet of the game, tackling any challenges related to the
game and coming up with appropriate solutions,” Blatter said Thursday in a
statement.
The lineup of former players
includes former AC Milan teammates Demetrio Albertini and Dejan Savicevic,
Fernando Hierro and Zambia's Kalusha Bwalya.
FIFA also appointed officials
from three countries who lost in bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups:
United States federation president Sunil Gulati, and chief executives Alex
Horne from England and Japan's Kohzo Tashima.
Beckenbauer, who retires as a
member of FIFA's executive committee in June, said his team will examine
goal-line technology and using additional assistant referees at each end of the
field.
Referees are represented by Swiss
World Cup official Massimo Busacca, the retired Peter Mikkelsen of Denmark and
Paraguay's Carlos Alarcon, a member of FIFA's referees committee.
Women's football
representatives include former Canada forward Charmaine Hooper and Italian
journalist Marina Sbardella.
FIFA's chief medical officer
Jiro Dvorak and Theo van Seggelen, general secretary of the FIFPro global group
of players' unions, are also included.
The panel will first meet May
10 in Zurich, and deliver a report to the congress of FIFA's 208 national
members on June 1.
