By Tony Attwood
Fifa has lodged a claim in the US courts for tens of millions of dollars for damages and compensation from the former executives who have been found guilty or accused of fraud. The reason is that they have “deeply tarnished the Fifa brand”.
I bet the court case is going to be fun. Someone is going to have to get up and say, “the Fifa brand was pure beforehand” and then show that Fifa took all due steps to ensure that no one was tarnishing their wonderful name. I wonder how many articles from blogs like this one and the handful of newspapers that also covered the tales, will need to be produced to show that everyone knew all the time that Fifa was a corrupt corporation.
I guess Fifa will then say, “but the TV companies in England and elsewhere continued to pay billions of dollars for the rights to show our games.”
And the other side will say, “yes but they still are – you haven’t lost anything.”
And then maybe we could do a poll asking people if they still think Fifa is corrupt, and maybe the various heads and ex-heads of the FA could stand up and explain why, when knowing what Fifa was, it continued to bid to hold a tournament under the auspices of one of the most corrupt organisations on the planet.
This one could run and run.
Of course at its heart is greed. $190m has been forfeited by the Fifa officials and marketing executives indicted over the past 12 months. Another $100m has been seized from the “felonious schemes” run inside Fifa.
It’s all a bit like having stuff stolen from your car or your house. If you leave a car or house unlocked with a big sign up saying “I’ve got to New York for the week” entering to steal stuff is still a crime, but your chances of getting money back in compensation or insurance is limited because you were silly.
Anyway, within its submissions Fifa has said in effect that its senior executive committee members were guilty of bribery on a grand scale. OK we all knew, but nice of them to admit it. A prime example of all this is the $10m payment from the South African FA that helped get the 2010 World Cup. Allegations say that bribes were also paid by Morocco for the 1998 and 2010 WCs.
So here we have it. Fifa is the victim. And for reasons that escape me, Fifa is now seen as a victim in the courts of USA and Switzerland.
Conmebol in South America and Concacaf in North and Central American have issued similar claims to recover money paid out in bribes. The Concacaf general secretary Chuck Blazer is listed as owing $5.4m, the former Conmebol president Nicolás Leoz as owing at least $3.25m. Rafael Salguero, from Guatemala, $5.1m.
This whole crazy idea is based on the “Fifa is not corrupt – some people within Fifa were corrupt” approach, which Fifa has been remorselessly pushing. And what do you know, the new Fifa president is pushing the same line. Infantino recently said, “The monies they pocketed belonged to global football and were meant for the development and promotion of the game. Fifa as the world governing body of football wants that money back and we are determined to get it no matter how long it takes.
“The defendants diverted this money not just from Fifa but from players, coaches and fans worldwide who benefit from the programmes that Fifa runs to develop and promote football.
“These dollars were meant to build football fields, not mansions and pools; to buy football kits, not jewellery and cars; and to fund youth player and coach development, not to underwrite lavish lifestyles for football and sports marketing executives. When Fifa recovers this money, it will be directed back to its original purpose: for the benefit and development of international football.”
Fortunately not everyone was taken in. The Telegraph said in a headline, “Welcoming Gianni Infantino as Fifa president requires ignorance, forgetfulness and hypocrisy,” which seems a good place to start. They went on, “If newly elected head of world football is against what Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini represent he should say so and deserves no slack until he does.
And he also has to explain why Blatter said, and no one contradicted him for saying it, Infantino “has all the qualities to continue my work.”
Also remember Infantino ran on a platform of expanding the World Cup to 40 teams and doubling payments from Fifa to national associations: which is where all the problems started. And he has never put any distance between himself and Blatter and Platini.
Infantino said of Blatter, “I respect very much all the work he did in terms of football development, in particular around the world.”
He’s also accepting that the seemingly corrupt placement of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 WC to Qatar, both human rights denying states, was a jolly good day’s work at the office.
But there is a tiny burst of light, for of late a small number of media outlets have openly talked about the concept that was previously more or less the preserve of Untold: closure and disbandment of Fifa.
As for the alternative, The European Clubs Association immediately repeated its opposition to Infantino’s WC expansion. They know that Fifa need what they, the clubs have, namely players. They are now getting ready to say, yes, we will do this but we want things in return – like a change to the calendar so that WC games stop interfering with League games.Infantino is also remembered (at least in the offices of Untold) as being the man who totally failed to deal with match-fixing in Greece and Turkey. He might say that“Fifa has gone through sad times, times of crisis. Those times are over,” but the number of lackeys in newspapers who are willing to print such crap without a suitable side comment is declining.
Anniversaries
17 March 1949: Pat Rice born. He went on to make 391 league starts across a 13 season career, became temporary manager while waiting for Arsène Wenger to arrive from Japan, and then Arsène Wenger’s long term assistant.
17 March 1958: Arsenal won the London Challenge Cup beating West Ham Utd 3-1. It was one of 16 times Arsenal reached the final, and one off 11 times Arsenal won it.
Poor Fifa…. LOL….
Fifa allowed it by doing nothing about it and sticking their heads in the sand. Some brave journalists told us how corrupt it all was years and years ago and Untold to its credit joined in this calling it as it was.
Wind them up is the only good thing that should happen.
My point is still: Fick Fufa!
Excellent work Tony, the arrogance of FIFA is amazing. Sorry for the long post, but here’s some of the things they are asking for according to the USA Today and the Associated Press:
1) $28.2 million for years of payments, including bonuses, flights and daily expenses, to officials it now says are corrupt. This is the amount they have paid to 20 men over the years including:
a) more than $5.3 million it spent on Chuck Blazer
b) $4.4 million of its claim for former FIFA vice president Jack Warner
c) $3.5 million for Ricardo Teixeira
d) $2 million for payments to Jeffrey Webb
***FIFA paid these employees based on their salaries/contracts, etc. and associated benefits (flights, daily expenses, etc..), yet want the U.S. government to give them the assets seized by the FBI because FIFA didn’t do their job properly to stop this corruption to begin with!
FIFA would have a better claim by filing a civil suit against these officials individually for breaking their morality clause (if one even existed).
2) Another claim was for $10 million bribe from South Africa to Jack Warner for “theft” of money since the payment was through a FIFA account.
***So the money was not FIFA’s to begin with (was South African FA’s presumably) and they failed to identify a $10 million bribe that went through one of their accounts, but claiming the money is theirs and was supposed to be used for grass roots football.
3) a claim for the cost of legal bills due to the separate US and Swiss probes
*** I could not stop laughing, they want their money back for the money they spent on the defense of their guilty officials from the US seized assets. This is another case of employer(FIFA)-employee (the corrupt individuals/officials) problems. They should be suing the corrupt individuals for their legal bills. Since it is clear FIFA accounts were used (i.e. Jack Warner above), FIFA should have no problem identifying the various accounts used by these individuals.
*** The only legals bills they should be able to claim are for the individuals who were found innocent, if any (yes it’s impossible to write that with a straight face, but the possibility exists).
4) you already mentioned the damage to brand reputation
***Still trying to figure out where the damage is? They still have large sponsors such as Adidas, Coke, Visa, Hyundai.
***The brand reputation if damaged was due to the corrupt individuals employed by the FIFA organization. If anything, this is another civil suit that should be filed against each of the corrupt individuals. I hope the judge just dismisses their claims.
The different FAs however have a better claim though since it was their funds that were used.
The guaranteed winners in this whole sordid affair will be, as usual, the lawyers. Those faceless people in the murky background, advising, cajoling, prompting…..all in the name of the elusive dollar. Whatever the outcome, they, above all other professions, are certain to prosper.
Just curious, if any of you have a background in law…is there a precedence for their attempted claw back of monies?
Centuries ago, I bought a parcel of land on which to build our first home together.
The land happened to be owned by a lawyer who naturally handled the legal side of the deal.
In his not inconsiderable account to me at the conclusion of things was the wondrous airy-fairy item for “numerous conversations with you about matters concerning the sale”.
Lawyers and short and curlies are
indelibly linked. 😉
In my (Canuckland) news. The septic bladderbird’s base salary was 2,964,379 Swiss francs. There is mention of 450,000 “variable compensation” (due to 40 years employment with FIFA), but I don’t know if that is part of the base salary, or in addition to it. The bird was not paid any bonuses in 2015 (too much corruption in the news I guess). I don’t see any mention of how much he was reimbursed for other expenses.
And off in the distance you can here the bladderbird (I’m clean, I’m clean).
Will there be a made for tv movie ? A sure winner , if it is considered as a comedy ( of errors !) !
I think that the published wage of the septic one is ridiculous. And it is probably on par with the wage of any regional or national FA, or league. The last thing I want, is people thinking as they start considering an adult career, that they want to be president of FIFA. I think that the people at the top of organizations like this, are people who have spent much of their lives involved with football, and nearing the end of their working life they decide to spend a few years working on goals of national or international importance. Salary’s of 2.4 million francs are 10 times too large, maybe more. And expense claims are much more than 10 times too large. If they are traveling somewhere, they can stay at a Holiday Inn Express, and book that stay a few weeks in advance, and have FIFA pay for it directly.
In terms of the EPL, and PGMO in particular, I don’t see a problem with the top referees getting more than 100,000 pounds a year. As long as they meet fitness requirements and are doing a good job. Administrators of those referees, should be getting paid substantially less.