ALL Fifa’s presidential election candidates will have to pass integrity checks before they can stand, election official Domenico Scala said yesterday.

One of the three main candidates, Chung Mong Joon from South Korea, has claimed that reports he is being investigated by the Fifa ethics committee is evidence of an attempt from within football’s world governing body to sabotage his candidacy.

Uefa president Michel Platini and Fifa’s president for Asia Ali bin al-Hussein, who was defeated by Sepp Blatter in May, are also standing.

Scala, the head of Fifa’s independent audit and compliance committee, says the ethics committee will have to give the green light to all candidates ahead of the February 26 election.

“At the end of the day, it goes down to the merits of the accusations. The ethics committee carries out the integrity checks and we [the election committee] will rely heavily” on its assessment, Scala said in a conference call.

Scala has published his own eight-point plan for reform but has admitted there is no guarantee his recommendations will be taken up.

The 13-strong Fifa reform commission has been given the blueprint by Scala and he has also presented his plan to Fifa’s executive committee following Blatter’s announcement he is to step down as president next year.

The eight recommendations contain little that had not already been suggested three years ago by the independent governance committee.

Scala has called for term limits, transparency on pay, integrity checks and changes to executive committee elections.

World Cup bidders would also not be allowed to offer to fund development programmes.

Scala wasn’t picked to head the new reform commission — going instead to former Olympics director Francois Carrard — but he insisted he was not too close to the mire.

“I have made a very stringent report about what the issues are and how it needs to be addressed,” he said.

“If Fifa does not move, public opinion will not change.

“I made it very clear when Mr Blatter laid down his mandate in June that it was not only about the change of presidency but that there were certain systemic issues that need to be addressed.

“We need reforms now, we cannot wait. Fifa works very well operationally and has not come to a halt. But this is a watershed in terms of role and perception going forward.”

Carrard’s commission will make its own recommendations to Fifa’s executive in December.

Scala said term limits were the core of Fifa’s problems.

He added: “A number of issues have their root cause in the fact that people have stayed for far too long in a number of key positions.”