And meanwhile at Fifa headquarters … business as usual

By Walter Broeckx

This morning the Swiss police has arrested a few people. Once again a few top people from Fifa.

This time it is supposed to be Juan Angle Napout, president of the South-American Football association (what we would call UEFA in Europe) and also Alfredo Hawit from Honduras who is the boss of the Middle American football association CONCACAF (what we would call Uefa in Europe)

The swiss police has arrested them on the suspicion of having taken bribes for millions of Euros. Their names haven’t been officially announced when writing this but a correspondent of the New York Times in Europe has seen the arrests and given the names.

This isn’t really a surprise when you look at it as the Swiss prosecutor Michael Lauber said in September that there was more to come. He then said this investigation will take more than 90 minutes (lovely choice of words) and he then also said that they weren’t even close to the half time whistle.

A quick roundup of all the people that have been arrested or will have to go to court up to now shows that from the 22 people who were mostly responsible for giving the world cup to Russia and Qatar that most of them have since then been under investigation or has been banned even and will go to court in the next months.

We had

Mohamed Bin Hammam: From Qatar, was president of the Azian football association (= like Uefa in Europe) who had bribed people to bring the world cup to his country. He was thrown out at one stage, then TAS cleared him for not enough evidence but later new evidence cam above water and he was banned again.

Chuck Blazer: General secretary of CONCACAF and vice-president of the American Football Association. Chuck Blaze admitted in 2013 that together with other members of the executive committee of Fifa they were bribed to give the WC to South Africa. Blazer is one of the persons who has been telling a lot to the FBI about the inner corruption of Fifa.

Jack Warner: Businessman from Trinidad and Tobago and president of CONCACAF from 1990 till 2011. He was famous for asking millions of dollars to countries for his vote when a world cup had to be given to them. He was arrested for fraude and bribery by the Swiss police. He tells he has been the victim of a set up but he also got a rather dubious payment of 10.000.000 euro on his bank account from Fifa.

Julio Grondana: was the person who approved the payment of 10.000.000 to Jack Warner. But he died before the ethics committee could check him out.

Issa Hayatou: who is current president at interim of Fifa because of the suspension of Blatter. He is president of the African Football Association (CAF) since 1988. The Cameroon person has been surrounded by rumours of corruption since a long time. He also received money in the ISL-affaire. The marketing company that went bankrupt and in which a lot of people from FIFA received dubious payments. Hayatou has also been rumoured to have received a payment of 1.5M $ to vote in favour of Qatar.

Sepp Blatter : do I need to say anything? A dubious payment of 1.8M euro to Platini seems to be the thing they can finally get him for.

Michel Platini: receiving a payment for something he had done some 10 years earlier… yeah we all believe that immediately without any hesitation. That the payment was done around the period that some world cups had to be given away will have been just a coincidence of course.

Franz Beckenbauer: ‘Der Kaiser’ as his nickame goes seems to be wearing no cloths. It seems to be more and more certain that Germany did use some dirty money to hand out to whoever needed and wanted it to get the WC to Germany in 2006. Beckenbauer first denied anything but the investigation seems to dragging him down more and more.

Angel Maria Villar: another president at interim president this time from Uefa in the absence of Platini (see above). He was found guilty by the ethics committee from Fifa for organizing the deal with other members to vote for the WC in Qatar. He was fined but could keep his probably lucrative job….

Other people involved the ‘voting deal’ were Ricardo Teixeira (Brazilian FA) and Nicolas Leoz (former president of the South American football association).

Other members that are said to have received money from Bin Hamman according to the accusations :

Jacques Anouma (president of the Ivorian FA) who denies to have taken the envelop) as did Reynald Temarii (president Tahiti FA) But despite the denial he has been banned for 8 years by Fifa itself. The envelopes contained 1.5M $. Not bad for giving your vote away….

Amos Adamy from the Nigerian FA only wanted 800.000$ for his vote. He is suspended.

But it doesn’t always need to be money. Marios Lefkaritis (Cyprus FA) sold lots of land to Qatar and made a big deal with Gazprom just before the world cups had to be give away. We also have Worawy Makudi (Thailand) who made some big deals with Gazprom and some big land deals with Qatar around the same period. All coincidental with the appointment of the world cup of course. Banned by Fifa for 90 days by the way.

Chung Mong-joon : The south Korean businesman who wanted to bring the world cup to South Korea by paying lots of money to … well to all and everyone I think. Fifa suspended him for 6 years.

There have been 3 other persons who have been investigated by Fifa itself but who were not punished. Michel D’Hooghe from Belgium who received a painting from the Russian FA. That was seen as a normal gift… Vitaly Mutko from Russia has not yet been accused of anything but he is the Russian minister of Sports and involved in the doping case in the Russian athletics world. Only a mild form of over declaring costs when staying in a hotel. So reasonably a small fish amongst others. And then we have Sens Erzik from Turkey who apart from brushing under the carpet some match fixing in Turkey has not been punished for anything.

There are 3 persons who have not been named in any scandal yet. Geoff Thompson (English FA), Junji Ogura (Japan FA) and Rafal Salguero (Guatamala FA). They seem to be the only honourable man who have been at Fifa.

This all based on what I could find on the internet and in newspapers in Belgium. So the list may not be completely up to date and I might even have missed a few things.

But what is clear when looking at this staggering long list is that it seems that at FIFA bribery was business as usual on a day to day basis. I think that not one of those people involved should ever be allowed to do anything in football any more.

The only way forward is to dismantle FIFA completely and best is to never ever start anything like that again. And with Fifa, they can take Uefa down with them. A fish rots from the head down as the expression goes. So let us clear up the mess completely and take away the heads of all the fishes involved.

Fick FUFA and EUFA! I said it from 2010 and since then it has gone from bad to worse.

17 Replies to “And meanwhile at Fifa headquarters … business as usual”

  1. Someone in Singapore (?) has a sense of humour.

    http://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/football-sepp-blatter-leaves-scathing-review-of-swiss-hotel-where-fifa-officials-were

    Apparently a user named SuspendedSep123 left a scathing review of the Hotel where the arrests happened at TripAdvisor.

    I’m kind of hoping that the USA-DOJ and the Swiss-FOJ ask the RCMP to make some arrests in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and possibly Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It would not surprise me if people in the Canadian “FA” had been receiving brown bags full of money as well.

  2. Apparently FIFA is considering expanding the World Cup to 40 teams. I suspect this “threat” is part of the reason why 20 or so professional leagues from around the world recently formed, to try and persuade FIFA to not do this.

    Wenger (and others) have noted that the extra stress of World Cup has a noticable effect on the ability of teams to be competitive in the same year as a World Cup. To bring the World Cup up to 40 teams (and 1 week longer) will aggravate this.

    I think the only option, is that a 40 team World Cup take place over 2 years. There is a pre-tournament the year before a World Cup, which whittles 40 teams world-wide to 16 or 24 teams, which compete in the World Cup the following year. I would suggest no seeding of teams going into that 40 team pre-tournament.

    That would at least decrease the length of time players had added stress in the summer (off-season), instead of further increasing it.

  3. Barmy. But it’s an inevitability when you have all these money-driven entities whose goals conflict with each other.

    The prem is driven by money, Fifa is driven by money, Uefa is driven by money. Their product is football games. Fifa’s bonanza is world cups, the premier leagues is the Prem, Uefa have the champions league and the Euros.

    Premier league managers can hardly afford to leave out their best players, international managers will almost never do so, even on the rare occasions, like Wales’ last game, they undoubtedly should. That Fifa are sneakily trying to push through expansion at this moment of turmoil and shame strongly suggests the tipping point hasn’t yet been reached.

    A minor point but I’m still expecting to hear of a dodgy deal between Sepp and the makers of those crappy grass-substitute pitches used in Canada for the women’s world cup. Unless you are talking Russian climate, there seems no good reason to promote those pitches. They are rubbish, dangerous and players would be safer on a poor grass pitch.

    Saw a few games from Chile in the u17 world cup on them. A different ball game which put the better side at a disadvantage each time. All building to the extensive use of those pitches at the next two world cups I suspect.

  4. Meanwhile the interim presidents of FIFA organises a press conference and falls asleep during the press conference….

  5. Doctor: I have good news and bad news
    Patient: What is the good news
    Doctor: Your bad leg is getting better. It will heal in no time.
    Patient: What is the bad news then
    Doctor: We mistakenly cut off the wrong leg.

  6. @Rich,
    My admiration for part of the Swiss legal system is beginning to know no bounds.
    I readily forgive all the past secrecy over bank accounts, deposits, etc, provided they keep the momentum going and rid world football governance of the evil canker that is FIFA. 😉

  7. Nicky, think your past wariness of Switzerland and its systems has been very well founded ,but amazing what anti laundering , anti racketeering, and indirectly, even anti terrorism laws, not to mention the supposed need for transparency after the bank crash…..enforced by a world super power can do …..even to Switzerland.
    But great to see the crooks at FIFA floundering, bet a few UK FA players are a bit nervous at the moment

  8. Somebody said, the USA is taking revenge for not getting the 2022 World Cup. Could be true. In which case, we’re unlikely to hear what bribes the USA offered. Maybe people were just fed up with the self proclaimed world policeman getting its way as usual.

  9. A young doctor had moved out to a small community to replace a doctor who was retiring. The older gent suggested the young one accompany him on his rounds so the community could become used to the new doctor.

    At the first house a woman complained, “I’ve been a little sick to my stomach.” The older doctor said, “Well, you’ve probably been overdoing the fresh fruit. Why not cut back on the amount you’ve been eating and see if that does the trick?”

    As they left the younger man said, “You didn’t even examine that woman. How did you come to your diagnosis so quickly?”

    “I didn’t have to. You noticed I dropped my stethoscope on the floor in there? When I bent over to pick it up, I noticed a half dozen banana peels in the trash. That was what was probably making her sick.”

    “Huh,” the younger doctor said, “pretty sneaky. I think I’ll try that at the next house.”

    Arriving at the next house, they spent several minutes talking with another woman. She complained that she just didn’t have the energy she once did, “I’m feeling terribly run down lately.”

    You’ve probably been doing too much work for the church,” the younger doctor told her. “Perhaps you should cut back a bit and see if that helps.”

    As they left, the elder doc said, “Your diagnosis is almost certainly correct, but how did you arrive at it?”

    “Well, just like you at the last house, I dropped my stethoscope. When I bent down to retrieve it, I noticed the preacher under the bed.”

  10. Mark his words .

    A minister told his congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark 17.”

    The following Sunday, as he prepared to deliver his sermon, the minister asked for a show of hands. He wanted to know how many had read Mark 17. Every hand went up. The minister smiled and said, “Mark has only 16 chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.”

  11. Foreigners………

    A Swiss guy, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Englishmen are waiting.
    “Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?” he says.
    The two Englishmen just stare at him.
    “Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?” The two continue to stare.
    “Parlare Italiano?” No response.
    “Hablan ustedes Espanol?” Still nothing.
    The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted.
    The first Englishman turns to the second and says, “Y’know, maybe we should learn a foreign language….”
    “Why?” says the other, “That bloke knew four languages, and it didn’t do him any good.”

  12. Counts and Chickens

    A King sent out an edict that all his noblemen should swear allegiance to his name and pay him a tribute in gold pieces every year on pain of death. Many Dukes and Barons agreed and handed over the gold pieces directly, for he was known to be a ruthless and terrible ruler. But there was one Count, although he was happy to swear his allegiance, steadfastly refused to pay the tribute.

    The King was troubled as to what to do, for he was very fond of this particular Count, so he threw him into jail, telling him he had a week to change his mind before he would be executed.

    At the end of a week, the King asked the Count if he would pay the money now rather than lose his life, but the Count said no – he would rather die. “Very well”, said the King, you shall be beheaded at dawn tomorrow.

    Dawn came, and the Count was taken to the castle roof, where a chopping block was in place and a tall executioner in a black robe was standing waiting with a large axe. Once again the King spoke to the Count: “This is your last chance – will you pay me?” “No, never!”, he replied.

    At this the King gave the signal to the executioner. The Count laid down with his neck on the block, and the executioner stood beside him and raised up his mighty axe.

    Just as he started his swing, the Count let out a mighty cry: “Stop! I’ll pay!” But it was too late – the axe fell and his head was sliced off and fell to the ground in a pool of blood.

    The moral of the story is, of course, clear: You should never hatchet your Counts until they’ve chickened!

  13. Pat,

    you are aware that the main corrupt player and catalyst for this entire debacle at FIFA is chuck blazer. a former US FIFA exec. it is quite clear that US Soccer had some serious problems and bad apples. particularly on the FIFA side of things. in fact its the US brides and corruption that is opened the flood gates at FIFA!
    the difference is that when the US DOJ found out about the corruption of Blazer and his cronies in CONCACAF and FIFA they were willing to go to great lengths to punish the guilty. the US is by no means perfect and i more often than not disagree with its international policy. however i think you have to give credit where its due.
    FIFA should have been exposed far sooner. had your more traditional footballing countries and powers been less corrupt or more focused on justice and fair play.

    dont mind critism, but you also have to applaud when superpowers get it right….

  14. Gord- I can see it all now a league including all teams around the world. So much more cows to milk & so many more idiots to exploit with free hotels & special lanes during competition. We would never worry about injuries as our hospitals would be flowing with sports people with replacements coming of the production belts. Blatter Eutopia!!

  15. John L – either that or the USA seized the opportunity to use Chuck Blazer to get at their rivals.

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