FIFA SEEK TO CLEAN UP THE GAME

Fifa will today announce that a Briton is to head the world governing body's first independent watchdog - and his first task will be to deal with the World Cup ticket scandal that has engulfed the vice-president Jack Warner.

The appointment of the high-profile figure is aimed to show that Fifa has embraced transparency after years of criticism that their old internal ethics committee was toothless.

The timing is not good for Warner, a Fifa vice-president from Trinidad & Tobago, who this week was revealed to have been identified by Fifa's auditors as being involved in a World Cup ticket scandal.

Warner has kept his position because under Fifa's statutes only his confederation can remove. As Warner effectively controls the Concacaf federation, his position has until now been invulnerable, but all that could be set to change. One Fifa insider said: “The idea is that the new ethics commission is both independent and has teeth.”

The auditors Ernst & Young traced numerous World Cup tickets bought by Warner as having been quickly resold through a Florida-based agency at up to three times their face value.

In their confidential report to Fifa, the accountants say: "We can confirm that tickets included in orders under customer reference 201498572 [Mr Jack Warner] were transferred or resold into the secondary market in breach of the 2006 Fifa World Cup Germany ticketing general terms and conditions."