The Fiesta Bowl is still in a holding pattern after preparing and presenting over this weekend.
Reports last week said that the NCAA is still determining how to deal with the problems that arose in the operation of the Fiesta Bowl. According to the AP report, the NCAA is delaying its decision on whether to continue sanctioning the troubled Fiesta Bowl until later this year, saying it needs time to gather information on how the event will be managed in the future.
The NCAA said in a release on Thursday that it also wants to review the findings of a BCS task force that is examining the financial and political improprieties uncovered in a Fiesta Bowl internal investigation made public last month. That report could be finished by mid-May.
While the Fiesta Bowl is a BCS event, the NCAA sanctions all 35 bowl games. Fiesta Bowl officials are to meet with the NCAA Postseason Bowl Licensing Subcommittee next week in New Orleans. But the NCAA said no decision will be made at that time.
“We welcome the opportunity to meet with the NCAA subcommittee,” Fiesta Bowl board chairman Duane Woods said, “to inform them about the numerous steps and significant reforms that we have adopted to restore the very highest level of public trust and integrity in the Fiesta Bowl moving forward.”
In the meantime, the officials for the troubled game and the BCS met Saturday at the Big Ten offices according to this AP report.
“We had a very comprehensive and candid discussion with the officials of the Fiesta Bowl and all of us on this review committee are grateful for the time they have spent coming here to meet with us,” Penn State president Graham Spanier said. “Personally, I was very impressed with the depth of their presentations and the sincerity of their efforts and the transparency that they brought to this discussion.”
The Fiesta Bowl fired its president, John Junker, last month after a report commissioned by the Arizona-based game alleged misuse of funds. The BCS responded by creating a task force to review whether it wanted to continue to do business with the game.
Spanier, who is also the chairman of the BCS presidential oversight committee, says it will take “two to three weeks” to review what was learned at the meeting and discuss it with conference commissioners.
He said the presidential oversight committee will hand down the final decision on the Fiesta Bowl and “that will take us perhaps through mid-May or so.”
