Blatter defends involvement in ISL bribery scandal

By Andrew Warshaw

July 12 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter today mounted a staunch defence of his alleged role in the ISL bribery affair as his position as leader of world football’s governing body came under fresh scrutiny.

João Havelange, Blatter’s (pictured above) predecessor, and his former son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, were finally identified yesterday as having received millions of dollars in kickbacks from ISL, FIFA’s former marketing partner.

The pair, who had fought for years to preserve their anonymity, were named after FIFA published a Swiss court dossier that had previously been kept secret.

The report revealed that Teixeira received at least $13 million (£8.4 million/€10.6 million) between 1992 and 1997 from ISL and that Havelange received around $1 million (£645,000/€818,000).

Payments “attributed” to accounts connected to the two Brazilians totalled almost $22 million (£14.2 million/€18 million) from 1992 to 2000.

Although Blatter is not named in the report, someone identified only as “P1”, according to the Court, both knew about certain payments and also co-signed with Havelange (pictured below, left with Blatter) the original contract with ISL in 1997.

Previous court records show the agreement was signed by Havelange, who was President, and Blatter, who was then general secretary.

Blatter admitted today that he was P1.

“Yes, that is me,” he was quoted as saying by fifa.com.

But he denied there had been any cover-up or that he had any say in the Swiss Federal Court deciding not to identify him personally.

“It was the Swiss Federal Court that decided to make the publication of the ISL non-prosecution order anonymous,” said Blatter.

“As far as I am concerned, the whole document could have been published ‘clean’, to put an end to the speculation once and for all.

“However, the Federal Court stated that the ‘names of all non-accused third parties’ should be made anonymous.

“I am not accused, so I have been made anonymous as P1, which quite honestly is not difficult to find out.”

Attempting to justify how he knew of the illicit payments yet seemingly did nothing, Blatter said the law at the time was different to nowadays.

“Known what?” he asked.

“That commission was paid?

“Back then, such payments could even be deducted from tax as a business expense.

“Today, that would be punishable under law.

“You can’t judge the past on the basis of today’s standards.

“Otherwise it would end up with moral justice.

“I can’t have known about an offence that wasn’t even one.”

Yet he made assurances that no such situation would be allowed to occur in the future as a result of FIFA tightening up its controls.

“The Ethics Committee, which was created in 2006 on my initiative, is a direct result of the ISL case,” Blatter said.

“The reform process is moving exactly in this direction.

“To strengthen FIFA’s judicial system, some important steps have already been taken with the introduction of a two-chamber system – an adjudicatory body and an investigatory body.

“The Executive Committee will appoint the chairmen of these two chambers next week.”

Although Teixeira (pictured above) has resigned from all his major footballing roles, Havelange is still Honorary President of FIFA but Blatter said he would not be sanctioning his predecessor.

“I don’t have the power to call him to account,” he explained.

“The Congress named him as Honorary President.

“Only the Congress can decide his future.”

The fact that Blatter’s comments were made during an interview with FIFA’s own website will only serve to fuel suspicion that he might have something to hide.

He seems likely to undergo a far more direct grilling, this time from independent reporters, at a press conference following next Tuesday’s (July 17) Executive Committee meeting in Zurich.

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