By Andrew Warshaw
September 15 – As the world awaits the findings of FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert into possible corruption surrounding the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, the organisation has become embroiled in an untimely episode – this time concerning gifts offered to senior officials in Brazil.
According to Germany’s “Welt am Sonntag” newspaper, expensive designer watches were offered to Sepp Blatter and 26 other executives in gift bags placed in hotel rooms during the World Cup by the Brazilian FA (CBF), the acceptance of which would be a breach of its code of ethics.
The paper said the watches were produced by a Swiss partner of the CBF but that FIFA’s own watchdogs had ordered they be returned by anyone who accepted them.
A FIFA spokesman was quick to insist that nothing untoward had taken place, confirming the watches were designed by Parmigiani, commissioned as part of the CBF’s centennial celebrations, but saying there was no evidence Blatter or anyone else had breached ethics rules. “The ethics committee was informed about this accordingly and is dealing with the matter,” the statement said.
FIFA confirmed that both Domenico Scala, head of its compliance and audit committee, and Michael Garcia, the ethics investigatory chief who drew up the 350-page 2018 and 2022 report, were aware of the situation.
Garcia reportedly already blocked one delivery of watches to the ExCo shortly before the World Cup, this time from FIFA’s own timing sponsor Hublot, evidence that FIFA’s stringent transparency regulations were working. “The two chairmen determined in June 2014 that this would not be permitted under the organisation’s compliance rules and as such it was decided not to distribute any of the watches to any members,” a statement said.
FIFA’s ethics committee is now expected to rule next this week that members cannot keep the second set of watches left in Rio hotel rooms.
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