By Tony Attwood
There is an interesting story that has been highlighted in the Sunday Times and has popped up in other places concerning more than £7 million that was given by Sony Music to Fifa to be used “for charitable purposes, particularly in Africa.” The money came from the use of a particular song, and it was agreed by Sony that all the copyright money it gathered for the song would be given to Fifa.
And indeed it was. But the use of the money is obscure to say the least, and so, as a result, some 50 different bank accounts which are said to be linked to Ffia have been frozen by the Swiss authorities.
Now, in most of Europe and indeed a lot of the rest of the world (being as how Fifa is a worldwide institution) this is the big story of the moment, and there is a lot of talk of “corruption money” within Fifa in relation to the bank accounts which have been frozen.
Indeed, the story goes to the very heart of Fifa and the implications of the alleged corruption strike at the very top of the organisation. The accounts in question are not Fifa accounts, which early reports put out by Fifa suggested – the money seems to have vanished into other private bank accounts. Sepp Blatter, who is currently in front of the Fifa ethics committee, says, as he always does, that it has nothing to do with him. He is still technically head of Fifa, although he is also suspended from duties.
What is interesting here is that at last we have an ethics investigation into Fifa, being run at the highest possible level with the Swiss attorney general is investigating criminal proceedings against Blatter over a separate $2m payment made to Michel Platini some 14 years ago. Blatter is now suspended from all football activity pending the outcome, and rather ironically, he has been suspended by the very committee he personally set up to enquire into corruption in Fifa following an earlier outcry. He now says it is running an inquisition.
It is also being reported that the authorities in the USA have asked the Swiss government to freeze some 50 Swiss bank accounts related to football, including it is said, a number of accounts held by the head of the South American football confederation. No one has yet explained why he needed to have multiple bank accounts.
It was ten years ago that the US Justice Department first started to get its teeth into Fifa in enquiries that eventually brought down Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, but matters took a new turn last May when seven Fifa executives were arrested and 14 charged with systemic corruption by the FBI. More arrests followed last December, although there wasn’t much about it in the English media, which tends to be quite Fifa-friendly for some reason. (Are they hoping for free tickets? Or press passes? Or….)
It should be added that Fifa has run its own enquiry into corruption over the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar, but won’t tell anyone the results of the enquiry.
Fifa found individuals guilty of breaches surrounding a £1.3m ($2m) “disloyal payment” made to Platini in 2011. The Fifa ethics committee said that individuals had demonstrated an “abusive execution” of their positions. (That is to say the individuals were to blame and Fifa had no responsibility).
They have maintained that the payment was for work by Mr Platini as the president’s advisor in 2002. Mr Blatter has maintained that Fifa did not have enough money to pay Mr Platini at the time, so they agreed to delay payment.
The FBI enquiry, which has been running for three years, is interesting because most enquiries into Fifa and Uefa are run by…. oh, look, Fifa and Uefa. But the FBI enquiry is independent and is looking back through the past 20 years on the grounds that the corruption was planned in the USA and thus is subject to US law.
The Swiss attorney general is also running an investigation into Fifa, Platini and Blatter. But given the FA’s and the Premier League’s desire to keep playing in Fifa and Uefa competitions, the English media are not very keen on this story and tend to downplay it as a matter of a bunch of Europeans getting themselves in a bit of a tizz. Hence, you may not have read too much about it of late.
But it is harder to ignore the fact that legal authorities in the United States have charged 14 people with dishonest and fraudulent business dealings and money laundering conspiracies in relation to all this
Chuck Blazer, former general secretary of Concacaf, has now accepted that between 2004 and 2011 various Fifa senior executives accepted bribes in awarding multiple tournaments to various countries. This appears to have happened for each and every set of World Cup finals. In retaliation, Platini’s lawyers are now boycotting the hearings of the ethics committee. Fifa denies any wrongdoing and the FA continues to support their work.
