By Andrew Warshaw
March 16 – FIFA has admitted for the first time that the votes for both the 1998 and 2010 World Cups were manipulated, casting further suspicion over whether the joint ballot for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, to be staged respectively by Russia and Qatar, may also have been undermined despite both countries insisting the process was entirely clean and no firm evidence yet to the contrary.
As part of its 22-page submission to the United States Attorney’s Office calling for substantial damages as a result of the crippling corruption scandal that sent the organisation into freefall, FIFA formally accused South Africa of paying a $10 million bribe and confirmed for the first time that executive committee members, most of whom are no longer there, played dirty.
“It is now apparent that multiple members of the FIFA’s executive committee abused their position and sold their [World Cup] votes on multiple occasions,” FIFA charged.
With regard to 2010, FIFA refers directly to the much-publicised $10 million payment from the South African FA which was routed through FIFA but ultimately went into a bank account controlled by disgraced former FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF boss Jack Warner.
The South Africans have long declared that the money was to go towards the African diaspora in the Caribbean where Warner continues to protest his innocence and is fighting extradition.
But FIFA’s submission claims that Warner, together with his co-conspirators Chuck Blazer and Warner’s son Daryan and other co-conspirators “engineered a $10 million payoff in exchange for Executive Committee votes regarding where the 2010 FIFA World Cup would be hosted.”
FIFA claim they “lied” about the nature of the payment, “disguising it as support for the benefit of the “African Diaspora” in the Caribbean region, when in reality it was a bribe. They disguised and funneled the bribe money through the financial accounts of FIFA, member associations, and the 2010 FIFA World Cup local organising committee.”
Even more revelatory, perhaps, in FIFA’s clear attempt to portray a new spirit of openness in order to claw back some kind of public trust is the claim that bribes were paid by Morocco, first in the battle to secure the 1998 World Cup, which ultimately went to France, and then again in the race for 2010.
FIFA’s submission cited Warner’s “corrupt vote in 1992 for Morocco to host the 1998 FIFA World Cup, when he accepted a bribe from the Moroccan bid committee in exchange for his vote for Morocco.”
Twelve years later, said FIFA, the Morocco bid committee once again offered Warner and Blazer a bribe “this time of $1 million.”
Sources familiar with the legal process say FIFA’s information was based not only on the US indictments but also on its own internal investigation that examined more than two decades of wrongdoing by its own executives.
According to FIFA’s claim, indicted former officials ripped the organisation off to the tune of $28,224,687 since 2004. Of the sums being persued, Blazer is top of the list at almost $5.4m.
The request of Restitution also described in damning detail how Warner, at that infamous hotel gathering in his native Trinidad, was complicit in trying to buy votes for Mohamed bin Hammam in his ultimately doomed 2011 presidential election bid.
“Having learned just how lucrative his votes could be,” Warner decided to again “flout his duties” when Bin Hammam decided to stand for president, said FIFA.
“Warner agreed not just to sell his own vote, but also to improperly use his positions of trust to amass votes from other Caribbean Football Union members. Specifically, in exchange for bribes, Warner convened a special meeting of all of CFU’s member associations in Trinidad and Tobago, so that Bin Hammam could gain the support of the officials in attendance.”
Shortly before the vote, FIFA revealed, $363,537.98 was wired from a Bin Hammam account to an account in CFU’s name and under Warner’s control. Just before the election, however, bin Hammam withdrew when the scheme was uncovered and Warner was forced to resign.
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