BY TIM PARSONS
The football world was yesterday rocked, as highly placed FIFA officials were held in dawn raids at a £1,000 a night hotel in Zurich where members of the game’s international governing body gathering for its presidential elections. The £65m corruption probe into alleged bribes paid over 25 years has so far claimed a collection of dignitaries including Jefferey Webb, Eugenio Figueredo, Rafael Esquiel, Jose Mario Marin, Nicholas Leoz, and Jack Warner. The USA department of justice has indicted 9 of these on racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering.
The raid comes after a long inquiry led by the U.S Ministry of justice after Fifa’s controversial decision to award the 2018 and 2022 world cup tournaments to Russia and Quatar, crushing England’s bid to host the tournament. The wider allegations dating back two decades is said to involve allegations of ”the acceptance of bribes and kick backs”. Strong evidence against the accused is said to be water tight after an FBI informant who was once a FIFA executive recorded meetings with colleagues and with a bugging device, and set them up for investigation
Disgracefully, two current Fifa Vice presidents are are among those charged in a 47 count indictment that accuse the defendants of participating in a 25 year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer”. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said ”The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep rooted both abroad and in the U.S. It spans at least two generations of soccer officials, who as alleged, abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in Bribes and kick backs”. The United States said the made the arrests because payments were made through American banks . U.S Attorney General , Loretta Lynch, who ordered the arrests told reporters in Newyork that officials had turned soccer into a ”criminal enterprise activity”. In a serious charge of institutionalized corruption, the arrests and allegation are a bitter blow to the integrity of most football chiefs, and inevitably reduces them to little more than crooks if the charges against them are as true as asserted by the authorities. Their integrity and reputation will be completely shattered if jailed for the crazy level of greed and corruption. Conviction would carry up to 20 years in jail.
Whistle blowing cannot always be relied on because people will often fear for their livelihood and personal safety
Bribery and racketeering at FIFA has long been suspected to take place, though without any action taken against culprits. Chris Eaton, former head of security for FIFA, now director of sports integrity at the international institution of sports security said U.S officials have done something no other police organisation have ever done so far with FIFA. Eaton only 2 years ago campaigned against match fixing in football and the associated motive of match fixing. Kelly Currie, the acting U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said ” The fact is that no jurisdiction has been able to take a report or take action or co-ordinate global action such as the U.S has done today. We are seeing today a very powerful jurisdiction take action against a very powerful opaque organisation, FIFA. The defendants fostered a culture of corruption and bribes that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world. There were undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks and Bribes have been a day to day business at FIFA . The indictment is the beginning of our work, not the end of an effort to rid global soccer of corruption”. The defendants are accused of laundering money and accepting Bribes totalling £150m and providing lucrative media and marketing rights ” in return.
Bribery and racketeering at FIFA has long been suspected to take place, though without any action taken against culprits. Chris Eaton, former head of security for FIFA, now director of sports integrity at the international institution of sports security said U.S officials have done something no other police organisation have ever done so far with FIFA. Eaton only 2 years ago campaigned against match fixing in football and the associated motive of match fixing. Kelly Currie, the acting U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said ” The fact is that no jurisdiction has been able to take a report or take action or co-ordinate global action such as the U.S has done today. We are seeing today a very powerful jurisdiction take action against a very powerful opaque organisation, FIFA. The defendants fostered a culture of corruption and bribes that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world. There were undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks and Bribes have been a day to day business at FIFA . The indictment is the beginning of our work, not the end of an effort to rid global soccer of corruption”. The defendants are accused of laundering money and accepting Bribes totalling £150m and providing lucrative media and marketing rights ” in return.
Jack Warner, the former FIFA President is accused of soliciting £10m in Bribes from the South African government to host the 2010 World Cup. He has already appeared in court where 12 charges against him were read out, and is likely to spend the rest of the night there. The South African government said the allegations were unfounded and baseless. Warner himself has already strongly denied the allegations to the media , insisting that they have no legitimate truth to them, whilst criticizing the fact that he has not been afforded any due process in connection with the allegations. In principle, he has a point. The old saying of innocent until proven guilty really should apply to all here since there could be a perfect explanation for their involvement in spite of the doom now surrounding their reputation. Saying this, it still remains unthinkable that the many of them could possibly have a legitimate defense that will get them off the hook, especially when we are hearing of bugging devices that inescapably implicates most if not all of them, combined with the hard fact of money laundering amounting to millions of pounds over two decades. The Americans must have hard facts, and these guys must be walking on thin ice.
A worrying question is why it took 25 years for the authorities to discover such huge sums of bribery, considering the presence of high technology that has always been presence in the most powerful country in the world. It is a big wonder who kept it quiet for so long. Another question is where else is such corruption happening on a wide scale, and how rife is it? Many believe it has been going on even on premiership levels, and it may even have been reflected in some controversial decisions at big World cup matches. It also makes us wonder if other sports like Tennis, boxing, MMA should be similarly probed. Though if nothing has reared its ugly head yet, perhaps we needn’t worry. Bill Clinton was reportedly
upset when America lost the bid, that he apparently smashed a mirror, but the FIFA body decided to compensate him for his pain by paying his charity loads.
Already there have been calls for FIFA President, Sep Blatter to resign in the wake of these embarrassing offences. VISA has said it will reassess its sponsorship unless FIFA makes changes. Coca Cola and Adidas have voiced similar concerns. With all this going on, FIFA is due to open its annual congress, but has provisionally banned 11 of the 14 people charged by the US authorities on Wednesday from any football r elated activity.. Wherever big money is present, a warning bell may start to jingle. FBI Director, Mark Webb said ”this really is the world cup of fraud. Today we have issue FIFA a red card”. Indeed, it is high time that corrupt and power drunk individuals in high places are put in their place. The old saying that nobody is above the law must be given legitimate credibility. In this vein, we are still waiting to see those MP’s in Britain who are surely still shaking like leafs brought to justice. Many of the shamed football kingpins thought they were immune to the wrath of the law and many have now found out differently. For once, we can thank the Americans for their valiant work in catching the greedy fat cows that are the poison of the biggest sport in the world. And it took the orders of a strong woman in Loretta Lynch to instruct for their endless scandal to be brought to an abrupt end. Well done Loretta, keep it up!
