By Andrew Warshaw
May 5 – Claims that England’s 2018 World Cup bid team invited a prominent FIFA member to last week’s royal wedding to entice his vote have been denied.
Reports in Nicolas Leoz’s native Paraguay quoted him as saying he received the invitation the day before the December 2 vote during a breakfast meeting in Zurich with Prince William.
Leoz is President of the South American Confederation CONMEBOL and Prince William is President of the English FA.
Paddy Harverson, a spokesman for the Royal Family, insisted no invitations had been given to any FIFA members.
“No one from FIFA was offered an invitation to the wedding in return for their vote, I can categorically state that,” he told the Press Association.
Leoz was quoted in the Paraguayan press as saying: “I was invited on the occasion of our recent meeting [in December].”
Leoz said he was “unfortunately” not able to attend due to the CONMEBOL Congress in his home city Asuncion, which took place two days after the wedding.
In 2008, 82-year-old Leoz was named by fraud investigators in Switzerland as having received bribes totalling £65,000 from collapsed TV rights company ISL.
But he was invited to a Royal reception during the World Cup in South Africa last year where he met and chatted openly with Prince William’s brother, Prince Harry (pictured).
No action has ever been taken against him by FIFA.
Immediately after the 2018 vote, which Russia won by a landslide, British Prime Minister David Cameron revealed a light-hearted conversation between himself and William after the Prince had met an unnamed FIFA Executive Committee member.
Cameron said: “He said it had gone really, really well.
“I said: ‘Gosh, how did you do it? What did you offer him, an invitation to the wedding?’
“He said: ‘Prime minister, I went so far I think I offered to marry him!'”
Despite the denial that Leoz was officially approached, the claims could make next week’s latest session of the Parliamentary inquiry into football governance even more revealing.
The session is devoted to discovering what went wrong with England’s 2018 bid, with Lord Triesman set to give evidence.
Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]