By Andrew Warshaw
April 15 – The deadline for the eagerly awaited judgement into the long-running ISL saga was extended yet again today with no explanation from FIFA other than more time was needed by its ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert.
FIFA’s American anti-corruption buster Michael Garcia had been expected to present his report into the 12-year-old bankruptcy scandal at FIFA’s executive committee meeting earlier this month.
Instead, the media were asked to be “patient” since Garcia had passed the 4,000-page report on to Eckert, with April 15 earmarked for likely action to be recommended against those known to have taken illegal payments from the Swiss marketing company which collapsed in 2001 with heavy debts.
But all the unanswered questions still remain. In a brief statement, FIFA said that Eckert needed “a few more days” to complete his findings into allegations that named senior FIFA officials took vast kickbacks in exchange for World Cup broadcasting rights.
Publication of Eckert’s conclusions could result in 97-year-old Joao Havelange ultimately being stripped of his honorary FIFA presidency after a Swiss prosecutor’s report confirmed that Havelange, who led FIFA for 24 years, received millions of dollars.
FIFA asked Garcia last year to study the ISL case, which in all implicated four members of the FIFA executive committee and linked Havelange and his former son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, to payments totalling $22 million from 1992-2000. Teixeira resigned his football duties last year, including head of Brazil’s World Cup organising committee.
Nicolas Leoz of Paraguay, president of Conmebol, allegedly received $730,000 while FIFA Vice-President Issa Hayatou of Cameroon was reprimanded by the International Olympic Committee, of which he is member, for taking 100,000 French francs ($20,000) from ISL in 1995. Hayatou, who said the money was to help finance the 40th anniversary of the Confederation of African Football, was recently re-elected unopposed to carry on running the sport in his Continent for another four years.
Havelange resigned his 48-year IOC membership in December, 2011, just days before the IOC was due to take action against him in its own probe of the ISL case.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734789829labto1734789829ofdlr1734789829owedi1734789829sni@w1734789829ahsra1734789829w.wer1734789829dna1734789829