Sepp Blatter has backed a proposal that FIFA’s senior officials should pass integrity checks.
The world governing body is mired in scandal amid investigations into corruption by United States and Swiss authorities.
But FIFA president Blatter, who announced he was standing down just days after being re-elected as president for a fifth term last month, has insisted reforms can be made from within.
In his column in The FIFA Weekly magazine, the 79-year-old wrote: “Our new executive committee member, Wolfgang Niersbach from Germany, has put forward a motion I support. The president of the German Football Association has proposed an independent integrity check for all members of the most important FIFA committees.
“In doing so, Niersbach has broached a subject that has so far been blocked by UEFA of all associations. Better late than never.
“The message he has thereby sent out must apply to everyone: only together can we continue to drive the process of reform forward. That is something I will stand for until my final day in office.”
European governing body UEFA has been a leading critic of Blatter’s regime.
Blatter has also called on individual confederations such as UEFA to follow the lead of FIFA and establish their own ethics committees.
He wrote: “Confederations must at the same time acknowledge their responsibility in matters of ethics. Only the Asian confederation has an ethics committee like the one introduced by FIFA. All other continental bodies are lacking in this regard.”
A date for the next election will be set at an extraordinary meeting of FIFA’s executive committee (ExCo) on July 20.
In his column Blatter does not address reports that he could change his mind and stand for re-election. FIFA issued a statement earlier in the week saying Blatter stood by his decision to resign.
Blatter does comment on the further reforms he would also like to see set in motion at the July 20 meeting, including an expansion of the exco.
He wrote: “The key is to strengthen democracy within the ‘FIFA government’.
“The confederations must be proportionally represented according to the number of member associations they have. The fact that CAF, the African confederation boasting 54 members and the AFC, the Asian confederation with 46 members, only have five and four delegates respectively in the 25-person FIFA executive is contradictory to this notion of democracy.
“At the same time we must also ensure that women are appropriately represented in the ExCo. World football’s governing body is not a “men-only club”.
Approximately 50 per cent of the 450 employees at the home of FIFA are women.
“However, I am reluctant to take places away from anyone; there should not be a redistribution of seats on the executive committee but a commensurate expansion of this body.”
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