LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron will tell G7
leaders on Sunday that FIFA's corruption scandal offers an opportunity
to tackle the broader "cancer" of corruption globally.
FIFA
president Sepp Blatter announced on Tuesday that he would stand down as
U.S. and Swiss authorities pursued corruption investigations into the
organization and many of its top officials.
As pressure grew on
Blatter in recent weeks, some British newspapers have also criticized
Cameron, recalling his complaints about a 2010 BBC program that raised
allegations of corruption at FIFA.
"There is something of an
international taboo over pointing the finger and stirring up concerns,"
Cameron said in a statement on Friday.
"At international
summits, leaders meet to talk about aid, economic growth and how to keep
our people safe. But we just don't talk enough about corruption. This
has got to change. We have to show some of the same courage that exposed
FIFA and break the taboo."
Cameron plans to use the two-day
summit of the Group of Seven economies in Germany to encourage
discussion of how to tackle corruption, calling it "the cancer at the
heart of so many of the problems we face around the world today. It
doesn't just threaten our prosperity, it also undermines our security."
The
World Bank estimates more than $1 trillion is paid in bribes each year,
while the World Economic Forum says corruption increases the cost of
doing business on average by up to 10 percent.
