(English) FIFA: Soccer governing body donates watches worth $1.4M to charity

World soccer governing body FIFA might not be able to turn back the clock on a wave of scandals but it’s hoping donating watches worth an estimated $1.4m to charity will bring some closure — on one chapter of its recent checkered history at least.

Goodie bags gifted by the Brazilian Football Association to VIP attendees of a FIFA Congress in Sao Paulo ahead of the 2014 World Cup included Parmigiani watches worth $30,000 each.

Subsequently FIFA’s independent Ethics Committee insisted the watches be handed back, ruling they broke their Code of Ethics on the grounds they were “unauthorized gifts.”

Of the 65 watches only 48 have been returned, but they have now been donated to the streetfootballworld charity, which plans to plow the proceeds of their auction into Brazilian soccer projects.

“Every cent we receive will go back into the communities we work with in Brazil,” Vladimir Borkovic, co-founder of the Berlin-based charity.