Sepp Blatter's unopposed re-election as president of Fifa last year should be the subject of an internal investigation into whether he unfairly exploited his position, according to a Council of Europe assembly committee.
A meeting of the culture, science, education and media committee in Paris on good governance and ethics in sport passed a draft resolution calling on Fifa to launch an inquiry and to speed up its reforms.
Blatter was re-elected in June after his rival candidate Mohamed bin Hammam withdrew when he was charged with bribery. In July, Bin Hammam, who denies wrongdoing, was banned for life. The Football Association chairman David Bernstein appealed at the time for the election to be postponed, and the committee of the Council of Europe – the watchdog that oversees the European court of human rights – believes the election process should now be scrutinised.
The draft resolution states: "The assembly specifically calls on Fifa to take the necessary steps to cast full light on the facts underlying the various scandals which, in recent years, have tarnished its image and that of international football.
"The assembly insists that Fifa … opens an internal investigation in order to determine whether, and to what extent, during the latest campaign for the office of president, the candidates, and particularly the successful candidate, exploited their institutional positions to obtain unfair advantages for themselves or for potential voters."
Bin Hammam was banned after being found guilty of offering cash gifts of $40,000 each to 25 officials from the Caribbean at a meeting three weeks before the Fifa election. Blatter's campaign tactics were also questioned when he announced to the Concacaf federation extra funding of $1m. The resolution also calls on Fifa to publish in full all documents it has in relation to the ISL court case, in which four current or former Fifa members are understood to be named as having taken kickbacks from the organisation's marketing firm during the 1990s.
The report to the committee by François Rochebloine, from France, says presidential terms of office for all sporting organisations should be limited. It points out that as well as football, the international federations of athletics, tennis, gymnastics, handball and skiing – among others – all have presidents who were elected during the 1990s.