Hear no evil: Sepp Blatter at a press conference this summer. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr./ABr
There is precious little to admire about Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, football’s international governing body, but one does have to admire his front. Responding to the Sunday Times sting—which revealed in October that two members of Fifa’s executive committee were prepared to trade money for votes in the bidding competition to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups—Blatter defended his patch, claiming, “Our society is full of devils, and these devils, you find them in football.” Maybe, but you really don’t have to look very hard in football to find them: a casual trawl of world news concerning the “beautiful game” reveals endless accusations of and investigations into match-fixing, embezzlement and rake-offs.
Blatter should know better; it was only in June, a few months before this scandal, that he was dealing with the fallout of the ISL-Fifa scandal that has been chugging through the Swiss courts for a decade. ISL was the marketing agency responsible for selling media rights for Fifa in the 1980s and 1990s. It went bankrupt in 2001 with debts of over £150m. Swiss investigators later found that vast amounts of money were paid by the company to football administrators via bank accounts in tax havens.
While Blatter was personally cleared by the court, the prosecutors claimed that, “Foreign persons of Fifa institutions have received provisions from ISL.” In the strange world of Swiss law none of the recipients can be named, because at the time the payments were made they were not considered bribes. Nonetheless, it is clear from documents in the public domain that Nicolas Leoz, a Paraguayan member of Fifa’s executive committee, did receive large payments from the company. And the defendants in the case have agreed to pay much of the court’s costs.
Needless to say, Leoz has not been asked to leave the Fifa executive, but then what do you have to do to be kicked off? Casual antisemitism perhaps? Julio Grondona, also a member of the Fifa executive committee, survives despite saying, in 2003: “I do not believe a Jew can ever be a referee at that level [Argentine Premier League] because it’s hard work and, you know, Jews don’t like hard work.” Reselling and profiteering on World Cup tickets? Jack Warner remains firmly in place despite the revelation that many of the Trinidad and Tobago’s FA ticket allocation at the 2006 World Cup was sold on in luxury packages by a travel agency run by his family and of which he was a director.
Given this kind of record (and the charge sheet just goes on and on and on) and Fifa’s failure to properly address the accusations made against its leading officials, it is utterly disingenuous of Blatter to ask “whether it is appropriate for newspapers and journalists to set traps for people.” On the contrary, it has until now been a dereliction of journalistic duty that, aside from a few intrepid souls, like investigative reporter Andrew Jennings, so little effort has gone into uncovering and exposing this kind of behaviour. Fifa has now suspended the two officials accused by the Sunday Times, launched its own investigation into the matter and, despite the rancour, plans to continue with the timetable for allocating the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in early December.
Whatever the outcome of Fifa’s inquiries, or indeed the bid competition itself, the credibility of the institution, its leading officials and its processes is utterly shot. It has truly reached rock bottom when even Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is lecturing Fifa on reform. The bidding process for the Olympic Games was equally murky, until the bribery scandal that secured the 2002 Winter Olympics for Salt Lake City revealed all. Decades of rumour and denial were finally blown open, ten members of the IOC were forced to resign after accepting gifts, scholarships and other inducements, and the body instituted a number of minor reforms; most significantly the IOC has an oversight committee that is not full of internal placemen. Fifa, by contrast, has changed nothing and has an oversight, or ethics, committee full of football officials.
It is testament to the closed, unaccountable world of Fifa that none of this, as yet, has threatened Blatter’s position. Next year he plans to stand, so far unopposed, for his fourth term as president. No one involved in the bidding process, and no one with ambitions and interests at Fifa dares to challenge him.
Like any elite which is unaccountable, Fifa and the football bureaucrats have become contemptuous of their critics. The Sunday Times investigation has at least punctured their sense of invulnerability, but it will be a tragedy if things end there. Fifa must be reformed, its accounts and decision-making procedures made transparent, its transgressions investigated by real independents and its elite deposed. You want devils? You’ll find them at Fifa and that is where the political exorcism must start.
There is precious little to admire about Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, football’s international governing body, but one does have to admire his front. Responding to the Sunday Times sting—which revealed in October that two members of Fifa’s executive committee were prepared to trade money for votes in the bidding competition to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups—Blatter defended his patch, claiming, “Our society is full of devils, and these devils, you find them in football.” Maybe, but you really don’t have to look very hard in football to find them: a casual trawl of world news concerning the “beautiful game” reveals endless accusations of and investigations into match-fixing, embezzlement and rake-offs.
Blatter should know better; it was only in June, a few months before this scandal, that he was dealing with the fallout of the ISL-Fifa scandal that has been chugging through the Swiss courts for a decade. ISL was the marketing agency responsible for selling media rights for Fifa in the 1980s and 1990s. It went bankrupt in 2001 with debts of over £150m. Swiss investigators later found that vast amounts of money were paid by the company to football administrators via bank accounts in tax havens.
While Blatter was personally cleared by the court, the prosecutors claimed that, “Foreign persons of Fifa institutions have received provisions from ISL.” In the strange world of Swiss law none of the recipients can be named, because at the time the payments were made they were not considered bribes. Nonetheless, it is clear from documents in the public domain that Nicolas Leoz, a Paraguayan member of Fifa’s executive committee, did receive large payments from the company. And the defendants in the case have agreed to pay much of the court’s costs.
Needless to say, Leoz has not been asked to leave the Fifa executive, but then what do you have to do to be kicked off? Casual antisemitism perhaps? Julio Grondona, also a member of the Fifa executive committee, survives despite saying, in 2003: “I do not believe a Jew can ever be a referee at that level [Argentine Premier League] because it’s hard work and, you know, Jews don’t like hard work.” Reselling and profiteering on World Cup tickets? Jack Warner remains firmly in place despite the revelation that many of the Trinidad and Tobago’s FA ticket allocation at the 2006 World Cup was sold on in luxury packages by a travel agency run by his family and of which he was a director.
Given this kind of record (and the charge sheet just goes on and on and on) and Fifa’s failure to properly address the accusations made against its leading officials, it is utterly disingenuous of Blatter to ask “whether it is appropriate for newspapers and journalists to set traps for people.” On the contrary, it has until now been a dereliction of journalistic duty that, aside from a few intrepid souls, like investigative reporter Andrew Jennings, so little effort has gone into uncovering and exposing this kind of behaviour. Fifa has now suspended the two officials accused by the Sunday Times, launched its own investigation into the matter and, despite the rancour, plans to continue with the timetable for allocating the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in early December.
Whatever the outcome of Fifa’s inquiries, or indeed the bid competition itself, the credibility of the institution, its leading officials and its processes is utterly shot. It has truly reached rock bottom when even Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is lecturing Fifa on reform. The bidding process for the Olympic Games was equally murky, until the bribery scandal that secured the 2002 Winter Olympics for Salt Lake City revealed all. Decades of rumour and denial were finally blown open, ten members of the IOC were forced to resign after accepting gifts, scholarships and other inducements, and the body instituted a number of minor reforms; most significantly the IOC has an oversight committee that is not full of internal placemen. Fifa, by contrast, has changed nothing and has an oversight, or ethics, committee full of football officials.
It is testament to the closed, unaccountable world of Fifa that none of this, as yet, has threatened Blatter’s position. Next year he plans to stand, so far unopposed, for his fourth term as president. No one involved in the bidding process, and no one with ambitions and interests at Fifa dares to challenge him.
Like any elite which is unaccountable, Fifa and the football bureaucrats have become contemptuous of their critics. The Sunday Times investigation has at least punctured their sense of invulnerability, but it will be a tragedy if things end there. Fifa must be reformed, its accounts and decision-making procedures made transparent, its transgressions investigated by real independents and its elite deposed. You want devils? You’ll find them at Fifa and that is where the political exorcism must start.
