Tokyo Sexwale Promises Full Disclosure on Salaries if he becomes Fifa President

In an interview on the BBC today, Tokyo Sexwale said that he would call for full disclosure of all salaries at Fifa should he become the new boss of the world football organisation.

Speaking to the BBC’s Zeinab Badawi on ‘Hard Talk’, the businessman and ANC stalwart said that he would disclose not only his own salary but all salaries internationally since this was important information to give sponsors when raising funds.

When asked about his close friendship with outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter and other executives over whom suspicion and allegations of corruption have been cast, Sexwale said “these are friends…however, if any of them has been less than candid with the truth, the law will, and must take its own course.”

He said that should he become the new president, it would not be necessary for him to move permanently to FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, but that if the job meant he had to leave South Africa he would, pointing out that he had been in jail for 13 years and lived in the Soviet Union, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Sexwale, who was in jail on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, became one of the richest businessman in South Africa through interests in mining, gold and diamonds.

He is now competing with four other candidates for the top position at Fifa to replace Sepp Blatter.

The interview is being broadcast today on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel.  Watch an excerpt here.