FIFA’s Jack Warner and bin Hammam charged with bribery
Allegations from a FIFA insider against FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam and Vice-President Jack Warner are the most serious yet, a former English FA director tells Channel 4 News.
The pair will face FIFA’s ethics committee on Sunday, where they would be hit with long bans if the allegations – made by fellow executive committee member Chuck Blazer – are proved.
News of the charges has cast major doubt over whether the presidential election between Sepp Blatter and Mr Bin Hammam – scheduled for next Wednesday – will actually go ahead.
Mr Blazer, general secretary of the Concacaf federation of which Mr Warner is president, alleged that violations of FIFA’s code of ethics occurred during a meeting organised by Bin Hammam and Warner for Caribbean Football Union (CFU) associations two weeks ago.
Two CFU officials, Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester, have also been charged.
The former Executive Director of the English Football Association David Davies told Channel 4 News the fact the allegations came from a member of the FIFA executive committee made them more serious than past allegations of corruption, but he questioned whether FIFA could deal with the matter before the organisation elected a new president next week:
“They are saying that they are going to investigate and hear from those accused on Sunday and presumably try to come to a decision – even FIFA will find that pretty hard going.”
Mr Davies went on to urge the English FA to persuade large numbers of other countries to follow its lead and abstain in the election, but he conceded that there was little time to achieve this.
Andrew Jennings, the journalist behind documentary FIFA’s Dirty Secrets, which investigated allegations of bribery within the governing body, told Channel 4 News that “nothing will change” as a result of the charges being issued.
“Blatter’s vowed to clean up football and this may be why these charges have suddenly occured,” he said.
“I for one don’t believe a word of it and don’t think anything whatsoever will come of it, but there is definitely some subterfuge going on.
“There have been corruption stories, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, circulating for a very long time now, and what has been done? Nothing. What will happen now? Nothing except Blatter’s re-election.”
Football writer Simon Kuper said the timing of the charges against Mr Blatter’s rival, Mr bin Hammam, so close to the elections, would not have changed its outcome.
“You have to think that the timing of this was very savvy, but I gather that Sepp Blatter was going to win anyway,” he said.
Mr Kuper added that Mr bin Hammam’s implication in the corruption allegations comes against a backdrop of a power struggle between Mr Blatter and the Qatari royal family, who bankrolled the Middle East nation’s successful 2022 World Cup bid.
Qatar rejected calls by Mr Blatter to move the tournament to the winter months to avoid the country’s extreme head and to co-host it with other Gulf states. And speculation is rife that he was not one of the executive committee members who voted in favour of the state being awarded the tournament.
“I think that a lot of this has to do with Blatter’s competitive power struggle with Qatar, for whom bin Hammam is a key man and who exists by the grace of the Qatari Royal Family,” Mr Kuper said. “Qatar has not been happy with some of Blatter’s suggestions about the World Cup.”
But both Mr bin Hammam’s and Mr Warner’s careers are far from finished, according to Mr Kuper.
“Both bin Hammam and Warner – especially him, because he’s been around forever – have very strong power bases: they know where the bodies are buried, so to speak,” he said. “Their careers are far from over and they’ll live to fight another day.”
And asked about the potential for greater FIFA transparency that the charges may bring, Mr Kuper echoed Mr Jennings’ scepticism.
“Once the elections are over, the pressure on Blatter will go away, and it will look like he’s tried to clean up football.”
Read more: World Cup 2018: Ex-FA chairman calls for inquiry
The new investigation comes after an inquiry launched earlier this month by FIFA into claims made in Parliament over the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups last year.
Former FA Chairman Lord David Triesman said that FIFA members asked for “bribes” in return for World Cup bid votes.
He said the FA chose not to complain because it feared it might jeopardise England’s bid, which collected only two out of 22 votes last December.
He also claimed Mr Warner asked for £2.5m to be channelled through him to build schools, that Thailand’s FIA member, Worawi Makudi, wanted to be given the television rights to a friendly between England and the Thai national team; that Paraguay’s FIFA member Nicolas Leoz asked for a knighthood; and that Brazil’s FIFA member Ricardo Terra Teixeira asked Lord Triesman to “come and tell me what you have got for me”.