By James Dostoyevsky
When Saoud Al-Mohannadi, the Qatari official who was disqualified from standing as an Asian member of FIFA’s ruling Council won a landmark appeal – well timed so that he couldn’t run for office next month – the (football) world was mighty surprised. His was a rare, a very rare, case for the FIFA Appeals Committee to overturn the “independent” FIFA Ethics machine, not merely by reducing a sanction but by vacating it entirely.
When the president of the Caribbean Football Union, a football “small fry” from a small organization, appealed to have a ban overturned – a ban that was not issued by his own Confederation who had approved his candidacy to run for CONCACAF president – did we see the real purpose of abuse of FIFA’s justice system at work? The ban that was ludicrous at best and excessively punitive was issued by Domenico Scala who felt that a Swiss Francs 300.00 fine, was grounds enough not to let him contend the CONCACAF presidential election. That ban was, of course, also not overturned by the almighty Court for Arbitration of Sports (CAS).
Noteworthy too, that the CFU’s Gordon Derrick was prevented from appealing to the FIFA Appeals Committee in 2011, “because the sanction was too small for it to be heard on appeal”. Go figure. The sanction was too small, yet it justified banning the man from running? And only in the eyes of FIFA, the new, the clean, the fantastic FIFA of the latter-day-annointed.
Derrick, who unlike others in the CFU, had not taken the bribe offered by Jack Warner in an attempt to sway the vote in Bin Hammam’s favour, allegedly refused to “cooperate with investigators” (the same people who were paid in excess of 10 million Swiss Francs for the investigation into the 2011 sham. By the way: whatever happened to the cash money they, the Freeh Group, received from various Caribbean football administrators who had agreed to give it back?) What a load of depressing bullshit, all this is: A man’s reputation is irreparably blemished who did not engage in corruption, but those who did take the bribe were either suspended for a few months or slapped on the wrist. Only to continue as leaders in a different function a few months later.
This is all very clear to the new CONCACAF leadership, which desperately promoted Infantino’s candidacy and which now hands out the spoils on his behalf to those who didn’t vote for his opponent, Sheikh Salman, at the time.
But it is worse. Much worse. Pushed by its Canadian president, CONCACAF has sought helpers ever since to rid itself of Derrick, who wanted more independence for Caribbean football after he was voted into office. Montagliani found his helpers in a number of Uncle Toms, Dutch and Latino operatives who spearhead the campaign against Derrick and want to curry favour with the White Men in Zurich and beyond: Richard Dijkhoff of Aruba, Randy Harris of Barbados, Bruce Blake of Cayman Islands fame (a few more words about this special gentleman soon), Cheney Joseph of Grenada, Eric Labrador of US-Puerto Rico, Osiris Guzman of the Dominican Republic (who should really shut up and retire after having compared Blatter to Jesus and Mandela at a CONCACAF Congress) and Luis Hernandez of Cuba.
This assembly of US/Canadian poodles (let’s face it, Montagliani doesn’t call the shots) who hope for spoils and advantages by bending their backbone full circle (not to mention their very interesting past as administrators) and barking at anybody while conveying Their Bald Master’s Voice, is a pretty remarkable bunch and we have stumbled over some entertaining information about them. Stuff that thrillers are made of.
But let’s introduce another little nugget: At the recent CONCACAF Congress (and the contemporaneous CFU Congress in Aruba) some Member Associations we spoke to indicated that they were advised that “FIFA and CONCACAF will not approve the disbursement of the USD $1million to the CFU unless Derrick has been removed as CFU President”. Some claim that the new big man for football development, Veron Monsengo-Omba, FIFA Director of Development Caribbean and Africa, has been peddling that narrative quite openly.
The collective of sycophants appear to believe that Derrick was a staunch supporter of Sheikh Salman and refused to support Infantino, and based on that assumption alone, he must be eliminated. Wow. Funny enough, that’s how democracy usually works: some people vote for Trump, others don’t, right? And those who didn’t – vote for Infantino, Trump, you name it – get shafted further down the road. This kind of “democracy” may be the flavor of the day in the US and clearly at FIFA too (just look at the recent CAF election), but it isn’t the kind some of us would want to subscribe to.
Move over to Asia
Maybe Worawi Makudi should stop shooting from the hip. In his case, as in so many others who are not presently targets of anybody (yet), any sort of boisterous and self-righteous attempt to orchestrate a come-back is ill conceived.
In Makudi’s case, he might want to remember a few meetings that took place in Bangkok prior to the 2010 vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. His memory may have lapsed, admitted. But the memory of those who met with him, only to be passed on to his “man for all matters”, a rather shady figure with a law enforcement background and organised (match-fixing) crime links, is probably quite vivid (an English manager of global fame can sing a few songs about that chap as well).
What if that Makudi-associate made it quite clear what he and his boss were expecting to vote for a bid? What if that boiled down to several million Dollars (five to be exact) “for a hotel on land that belongs to Mr Makudi”? What if all of that were to become part of a narrative that has so far been kept quiet because those who know the facts – and were present – have other worries to deal with, not dissimilar to the kind of issues Makudi & Co would run into if they went public with their knowledge?
It appears to this writer that while a lot of obvious material has been aired in public, and while lots of dirty laundry was washed in public, often, for the aggrandisement of some prosecutor or other, and delivered on a silver plate by snitches who bought themselves deals as a result of their singing, it appears that FIFA is a gift that keeps giving. As long as some of those crooks who never understood that there are limits even to in-your-face audacity of malfeasance, the FIFA saga will continue.
Their only saving grace is the law, as odd as that may sound: the longer investigations continue – anywhere – and the longer whichever authority waits with bringing the matters to court, the less likely is prosecutorial success: statutory time will pass and put a stop to further prosecution. Most if not all cases that date back beyond 2010 are already statute barred. But maybe there is method in that madness…Whose method, that remains the question.
James Dostoyevsky is a Washington-based observer of politics and sports. He can be contacted at moc.l1714464436labto1714464436ofdlr1714464436owedi1714464436sni@o1714464436fni1714464436