By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year
June 30 – Ben Buckley, chief executive of Football Federation Australia (FFA), has claimed bidding for the World Cup is not for the naive as FIFA announced they were launching an investigation into claims they had broken ethics rules.
The investigation was prompted by a report in today’s Sydney Morning Herald that alleged the bid campaign offered pearl cufflinks to members of FIFA’s Executive Committee and necklaces to their wives.
“For the time being, FIFA cannot disclose any other details or make any further comment,” football’s world governing body said in a statement announcing the investigation.
The Australian bid team believes it will be cleared of any wrongdoing over that claim because the gifts were handed out after a private dinner organised by FFA chairman Frank Lowy following the May 2008 FIFA Congress in Sydney.
That was before the official bidding process began in January 2009.
The newspaper also alleged that Australia’s bid offered payment for a Trinidad and Tobago under-20 team to travel to Cyprus to try to get the vote of Jack Warner, the FIFA vice-president who is the President of CONCACAF.
The newspaper investigation also detailed an expenses-paid trip to Australia for another CONCACAF representative on FIFA’s Executive Committee, Rafael Salguero from Guatemala.
Bid leader Ben Buckley denied the allegations and said his team stayed within FIFA’s ethics rules.
“Football Federation Australia has acted in accordance with FIFA guidelines in respect to its bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup,” Buckley said in a statement.
FIFA rules say World Cup bidders can give gifts of “symbolic or incidental value and that exclude any influence on a decision in relation to the bidding process.”
Buckley (pictured) has fiercely defended the bid against the allegations and claimed that Australia had to be more aggressive in its marketing than its rivals because of its lack of history and tradition in the sport.
“When Australia launched its bid to host a World Cup tournament, Football Federation chairman Frank Lowy said that this ambitious quest would require nothing less than an all-out effort by the entire country,” he wrote in an article published in Thursday’s edition of the The Age.
“Australia was a fledgling football nation that in a few short years had captured the world’s imagination and was on the rise.
“But our competitors were some of the giants of world football; all experienced in the art of bidding for major events.
“Lowy made a point of saying that Australia would fight its campaign by the rules because he knows that the potential for scandal in bidding for any major global event is ever present.
“That is why Australia has been scrupulous about playing by the rules.”
“You don’t win a World Cup bid campaign by posting an application letter and waiting for a favourable reply,” he wrote.
“You must get out in the world, and aggressively but sensibly promote Australia’s bid.
“Dozens of consultants and staff are employed, including in other countries, to advance our bid.
“The consultants …have proven to be highly effective, and continue to do a good job on Australia’s behalf.
“The campaign is a logistical, emotional and diplomatic marathon played out over several years.
“It’s not for the faint-hearted or the naive.”
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