By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 9- World Cup sponsors have called on FIFA to deal thoroughly with corruption claims as a second swathe of allegations over Qatar’s conduct in securing the 2022 tournament was published by Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, overshadowing this week’s big kick-off.
Twenty-four hours before FIFA’s ethics committee investigator Michael Garcia was due to complete his inquiries into the entire bidding process for 2018 and 2022, Adidas, Sony, Visa and Coca-Cola all spoke out over ongoing revelations concerning Qatar’s former FIFA vice-president Mohamed bin Hammam, at the time the most powerful official in Asian football.
“The negative tenor of the public debate around FIFA at the moment is neither good for football nor for FIFA and its partners,” said German sportswear company Adidas.
A Coca-Cola statement added: “Anything that detracts from the mission and ideals of the FIFA World Cup is a concern to us.”
“But we are confident that FIFA is taking these allegations very seriously and is investigating them thoroughly through the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee.
“The FIFA World Cup is a platform that unites people all over the world, inspiring and celebrating the world’s most popular sport while creating memorable experiences for athletes and fans. We believe that through our partnership and continued involvement with FIFA we can help foster optimism and unity, while making a positive difference in the communities we serve.”
Visa, which has a contract as a FIFA sponsor until 2022, said it was monitoring the progress of the Garcia investigation. “We expect FIFA will take the appropriate actions to respond to the report and its recommendations,” it said in a statement.
Sony took a similar line, saying said it expected the allegations to be “investigated appropriately”.
In a surprise move, Fifa’s executive committee announced that Garcia, who last week met Qatari bid officials in Oman and whose report is due to be filed with the ethics committee’s adjudicatory chamber in mid-July, will address the entire Fifa Congress on either Tuesday or Wednesday though it is unlikely any details of his investigation will be revealed prematurely.
In a statement from its marketing director Thierry Weil, Fifa said its sponsors were still fully behind the organisation.
“We are in constant contact with our Commercial Affiliates including Adidas, Sony and Visa and they have 100 percent confidence in the investigation currently being conducted by FIFA’s independent Ethics Committee,” Weil said.
“Our sponsors have not requested anything that is not covered by the on-going investigation by the Ethics Committee.”
In its latest revelations, the Sunday Times claimed bin Hammam, a disgraced figure who was banned for life for reasons unconnected with Qatar’s bid, used top level connections from within the Qatari royal family, including the Emir, to arrange deals to secure the World Cup for his country.
“The files show that Bin Hammam was fixing the meetings for members of Qatar’s ruling family with football’s most powerful men at the same time as using a network of secret slush funds to buy up a groundswell of support among the bosses of national football associations,” the paper said.
Qatar’s World Cup organising committee, which has consistently insisted bin Hammam played no part in its lobbying campaign, again reiterated it won fairly and squarely, distancing itself from reports that Bin Hammam paid around $5m to African football officials to influence their votes.
In a statement the Supreme Committee said: “There is an on-going investigation into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process, with which we have fully cooperated. Consistent with FIFA’s rules we have been asked to refrain from commenting on the investigation and we will comply with that request. Qatar has won the bid on its merits and we are confident that at the end of the appropriate process, the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar will stand.”
Once again, none of the allegations prove that Qatar broke any bidding rules and may, like the first tranche, have more to do with bin Hammam’s failed bid for the Fifa presidency than anything to do with 2022. Also, the fact is that nearly all the bidding nations perfectly legally used either heads of state or senior government figures, or both, to try and influence voting members, in England’s case Prince William and David Cameron for the 2018 tournament.
Nevertheless the rare intervention of Fifa’s sponsors has certainly fuelled growing discontent over the entire debacle and wracked up the pressure on Fifa president Sepp Blatter to act decisively if, and only if, Garcia’s findings prove categorically that Qatar broke the rules in securing the votes needed to host the tournament ahead of the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea.