The ongoing investigations into allegations of corruption in FIFA may have damaged its reputation, but award-winning investigative journalist James Dorsey believes the probe will lead to positive change within football’s world governing body.

Prominent FIFA executives are now “cautious about their every move”, he said, so as not to run afoul of the law amid a United States-led corruption investigation which has so far led to the arrest of several FIFA officials and senior sports marketing executives.

Authorities in Switzerland are also currently investigating claims that Russia and Qatar had bribed their way to winning the 2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively.

Dorsey, who delivered a lecture on the crisis facing FIFA and the geopolitics of football at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, pointed out today (July 20) that it was clear that politics and football were inextricably linked. “Reforms will have to regulate the relationship between politics and sports,” said the 63-year-old, who won the 2003 Dolf van den Broek prize, and has written for publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.