By Tony Attwood
On 27 May 2015 Untold ran this headline
If Fifa execs had read Untold in January they would have known they were going to be arrested
That story related back to our piece on 22 January that year which itself had the headline
Switzerland take a greater interest in Fifa – at last
It was of course pointing out that a change in the law in Switzerland meant that international bodies based in Switzerland no longer operated outside of Swiss legal juristiction. As far as I know, none of the main media outlets took any notice of either the change in the law itself, or our articles, and so were rather surprised when the authorities moved in on Fifa HQ. Just as surprised as the members of Fifa.
As the story unravelled so things got worse for Mr Platini and also the finger started to point at England, as we suggested in this little piece…
Slowly the finger points at England over Fifa corruption
There have been loads more of such reports on Untold, but in few other places (it is not a subject the media likes until it hits them in the face and then they pretend it has no history) but today they are finding it pretty hard to ignore, for today we hear that Platini has been arrested as part of the criminal investigation into corruption surroudning the awarding of the World Cup in 2022 to Qatar.
Claude Gueant, the secretary general during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, has also been interviewed by the French department engaged in combating serious financial crime.
So it has been two years in the brewing but now we have a move towards investigating the crazy, bonkers and mad decision by Fifa to hold a world cup in Qatar, a country where the temperatures are not suited to football, where the playing of the competition will have to be held in mid-winter, which will disrupt football seasons around the world, and where there is no history of engagement in football.
Platini has not denied that he had meeting with Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the man who is now the emir of Qatar, and that the future emir sought to persuade Platini to vote for Qatar and that in the end he did indeed vote (along with a bunch of others) for a world cup in Qatar.
As the Guardian then reported, Laurent Platini, son of the ex Fifa man, then got a job with Burrda, the company owned by Qatar Sports Investments. Everyone denies there was anything wrong with what was going on. And of course it might all have been the purest coincidence.
In all this we might remember that the utterly disgraced Sepp Blatter wasn’t part of this set up – he wanted the world cup to go to the United States. But, by pure chance and absolute coincidence again, as the Guardian pointed out, after Qatar got the world cup, “Qatar Airways ordered 50 French-made A320 neo-family planes made by Airbus, and QSI bought and mega-funded Paris Saint-Germain.
That is PSG who now win the league every season by lots and lots of points. The club which by pure chance is supported by Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa who by absolute coincidence just happend to be President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.
And indeed we might care to note that the broadcaster beIN then bought the TV rights for Ligue 1 in France and has held those rights ever since. beIN is a Qatari company, and its chairman is Nasser al-Khelaifi, who is also chairman of QSI and president of PSG. Although I am sure that is just a coincidence.
Thus once again the doings of Fifa are thrown into disrepute, and yet constantly the FA in England is throwing money at Fifa by being part of the organisation, and by desperately trying to bid for another world cup in England, despite having only got two votes last time they tried to do it. (One of which was England voting for itself).
It is really difficult to know what it will take to convince the FA in England (or indeed other Football Associations from around the world) that Fifa is corrupt from head to toe. I mean, if they didn’t believe it after the 2015 raids and all the court cases that followed on from then, the mere arrest of one of the top two people at Fifa at the time, is hardly likely to change their mind.
So more taxpayers money to be thrown at Fifa? Yep, I think we can depend on it.
The EU is corrupt, UEFA is corrupt and FIFA is corrupt so what’s new! What’s the common factor with these 3 organisations. 2 are run by the French and 1 was run by an Austrian 2 countries who think themselves untouchable all 3 are run by friends who elect let’s guess their friends and will always looks after each other. It’ll never change. Why is this acceptable they will always mug us they always have done.
Corruption rules ok!
The 2019/20 season has had its dates published – wait for the corruption to kick in.
Menace,
You have drawn attention on this site for many moons, about the inherent corruption in the governance of the “beautiful game”. From FIFA downwards.
With so much evil connivance , world-wide, how can there be any hope that one day, things will be put right?
It may be that it will take some sort of world-wide catastrophe before the major footballing nations will wake up and HAVE to take action.
Money is the root of all evil. When that can be controlled in a transparent manner a tide of clenliness will wash over sport. The fraud squad can rumble through the accounts of anyone in seconds. They need a trigger to evaluate the parties involved.
As ever: Fick Fufa!
Planes, France, US surplus contracts, Yemen, Syria, Russia, elections, tankers, Belgiian former premiers heading football investigations, trafficking, sanctions, trade wars and bits of paper with deosrture itineraries. A good piece, balance, Yong and yang, how after.
@ Keith
I’m not sure how you manage to shoehorn the EU into this, completely unrelated, story. Nor can I fathom how you believe it to be run by the French or Austrians. Methinks you need to lay down in a darkened room, stop reading right wing tabloids and perhaps do some proper research.