Fifa corruption: 80% of football associations refuse to explain where they spend their millions

More than 80% of football associations across the world have no public records on what they do with the millions donated to them by Fifa each year, according to a study. Of the 209 Fifa members, 168 do not make financial reports public and 178 did not publish an annual activity report.

The study, complied by anti-corruption body Transparency International (TI), showed only 14 nations – including England, Republic of Ireland, Italy and Norway – publish the minimum information necessary to let people know what they do, how they spend their money and what values they believe in.

TI said in many cases it is difficult to establish how football associations are spending their money, as a total of 42 do not even have an official website explaining their work. The research was conducted in the wake of the corruption and bribery scandal that has engulfed Fifa over the past few months.

Between 2011 and 2014, Fifa distributed a minimum of £1.3m ($2m) to each of its 209 member football associations, including a one-off payment in 2014 of nearly £700,000 following the success of the World Cup in Brazil . During that same period FIFA also shared £68m between the six regional football confederations.

TI said greater scrutiny of finances in the football world is necessary to help Fifa rebuild its reputation and change its culture. The reports states: ''Other than a partial accounting on the FIFA website, there is no clear way to track what the (members) did with all that money.

TI managing director Cobus de Swardt commented: ''The risk of corruption at too many football associations around the world is high. This problem is made worse by the lack of information such as audited financial statements by many associations.

"Any incoming president of FIFA must make it a priority to create more accountable governance throughout the organisations from the bottom, as well as from the top."

The study was conducted by creating four categories which represent basic information that should be available for organisations in order to monitor their governance and standards. These are:

Financial accounts, codes of conduct, charters/statutes and information on activities –with each football association given a point for every category they complied with.

TI gave one point for each of the four categories. Only 14 managed to get the maximum four points, with a total of 87 national federations scoring zero in the transparency test, including the home bodies of four Fifa Executive Committee members: Congo, Cyprus, Kuwait and the Turks and Caicos Islands.