By Andrew Warshaw
June 1 – FIFA vice-president Jim Boyce says the most explosive allegations to date linked to Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup must be added to the investigation into the entire bidding process being conducted by FIFA’s corruption buster, Michael Garcia.
In an unprecedented 11-page expose into how Qatar allegedly won the bid, the Sunday Times, whose past revelations have brought down a number of FIFA executive committee members, claimed it had obtained “millions of documents” which prove that in the buildup to the vote, Qatar’s disgraced former Asian Football Confederation chief Mohamed bin Hammam exploited his position by making more than $5 million worth of payments into accounts controlled by the presidents of 30 African member associations.
The paper names several of those who allegedly received the payments – specifically designed, says the paper, to sway the four African voting members into supporting Qatar during the December 2010, ballot.
Qatar 2022 officials have always steadfastly denied any knowledge of any wrongdoing, accusing critics of a smear campaign, stressing that despite the fact he was once Asia’s most powerful administrator, bin Hammam never actively lobbied on their behalf and pointing out that he was banned from football for life in 2011.
But the Sunday Times claims that while he was working at FIFA he used 10 slush funds controlled by his own private company to help Qatar secure the World Cup long before the ballot took place.
The latest revelations will intensify interest in the ongoing investigation being conducted by Garcia, FIFA’s top ethics committee prosecutor, who is looking into the entire bid process for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as part of FIFA’s reform process.
FIFA has consistently declined to provide details of Garcia’s probe, arguing that it is an independent inquiry. But according to unconfirmed reports, Garcia is due to meet members of Qatar’s 2022 bid team in Oman tomorrow (Monday), the first time he has had face-to-face talks with Qatari officials over what they knew and didn’t know.
A few weeks ago, InsideWorldFootball was one of three media organisations who unveiled a failed plot among the FIFA old guard – not, it should be stressed, including FIFA president Sepp Blatter – to try to halt Garcia’s inquiry.
Almost half of the FIFA executive committee who voted in the 2018 and 2022 ballot are no longer members but Boyce said the latest revelations should nevertheless be taken into account in Garcia’s report to FIFA, due to be published later this year, and that the 2022 vote should even be re-run if – and only if – there is proven corruption linked to the campaign.
“If the Sunday Times have unveiled certain things, it should all go to Garcia,” Boyce told the BBC. “Any evidence whatsoever that the people involved were bribed to do a certain vote, it should go to Garcia. “
“I have always made it abundantly clear that if Garcia’s report comes up with concrete evidence – and I stress concrete evidence – that wrongdoing happened for the vote for 2022, I certainly would have no problem if the recommendation was for a revote. It would have to be looked at very seriously at the time. People are trying to rush this but Garcia has to be given full control and do the investigation thoroughly.”
Boyce defended Blatter’s role in the entire affair, saying it was unfair to point the finger at him as a result of bin Hammam’s alleged plot to buy support across Africa. “Let’s be honest, there are people in authority who are not aware of things that go on regarding other individuals,” Boyce said.
He agreed there was a case for arguing that bin Hammam’s alleged strategy might well have been linked with his challenge for the FIFA presidency rather than the 2022 vote. “At the time there was a challenge by bin Hammam to Blatter. Was a lot of this him trying to influence people to vote for him in the presidential election?”
The latest furore is certain to be a major talking point at the upcoming FIFA congress in Brazil just before the start of the World Cup. FIFA’s much-heralded reform process is back on the agenda and it would be no surprise if the vanquished 2022 candidates – the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea – privately expressed their concern at bin Hammam’s alleged conduct.
Interestingly for Australia, the Sunday Times reported it has documents which also prove Bin Hammam underwrote the legal fees of Reynald Temari, another former FIFA executive committee member and one-time president of Oceania.
Temari was unable to vote in the 2018 and 2022 ballot since he had already been suspended by FIFA as a result of a separate Sunday Times sting. He would likely have voted for Australia, as would the man who replaced him on the FIFA executive committee, his deputy David Chung.
But when Chung got to Zurich, he found he was blocked from voting because Temari had decided not to stand down but to instead appeal – a move described by sections of the Australian media as sabotaging their country’s bid and facilitated, the Sunday Times claimed, by bin Hammam, the inference being that without a representative from Oceania, it may have influenced the outcome in Qatar’s favour.
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