The vote to pick the host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup must be rerun if corruption claims surrounding Qatar’s winning campaign are proven to be true, Lord Goldsmith, a member of FIFA’s Independent Governance Committee, said yesterday.
FIFA vice president and African Football Confederation (CAF) president Issa Hayatou has “categorically” denied allegations in Britain’s Sunday Times that he received gifts and money to support Qatar’s bid.
The newspaper says it obtained hundreds of millions of documents which it says show that former FIFA Executive Committee member Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar made payments totaling about US$5 million to soccer officials in return for votes for the Arab emirate.
Photo: AFP
In a statement, the confederation said the allegations against Cameroonian Hayatou were “fanciful,” “ridiculous” and formed part of a “smear campaign” against him.
“Issa Hayatou has denied categorically the allegations of corruption published by the UK Sunday Times in its edition of 1st June 2014,” the statement said. “Mr Hayatou will not allow journalists once again to attack his integrity and reputation. Such allegations are meant to discredit not only him as a person but the whole [African] continent.”
Qatari organizers of the 2022 event have “vehemently” denied claims that their successful bid was corrupt, saying that former Asian Football Confederation president Bin Hammam played no “official or unofficial” role in their efforts.
Yet the Sunday Times said the e-mail trails proved Bin Hammam was intimately involved with the two-year campaign to bring the World Cup to the tiny Gulf state.
In November 2010, the World Football Insider Web site quoted bid chairman Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, as saying that Bin Hammam was the campaign’s “biggest asset” and had been a crucial mentor for his team.
The Times said the documents and e-mails it obtained detailed conversations about payments and money transfers from accounts controlled by Bin Hammam, his family and his Doha-based businesses.
Among many other alleged payments to mid-ranking soccer officials and figures, including former FIFA player of the year George Weah, the paper said Bin Hammam paid a total of US$1.6 million to the disgraced former FIFA vice president Jack Warner, including US$450,000 before the Qatar vote. Warner has always denied any wrongdoing.
Bin Hammam also allegedly paid US$415,000 toward the legal fees of FIFA vice president Reynald Temarii, who was banned from voting in the original election following an earlier Times investigation.
The legal process helped delay Temarii’s replacement on the executive committee by his deputy, reducing the number of voting members to 22 and depriving Australia, one of Qatar’s rivals, of a vote.
Qatar 2022 is likely to seek to argue that Bin Hammam was acting to further his presidential ambitions rather than on behalf of the World Cup bid.
FIFA has referred all questions about the newspaper allegations to its independent Ethics Committee, led by US lawyer Michael Garcia.
The former US attorney in New York is conducting a supposedly independent probe into the bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. He is expected to pass his conclusions to the revamped ethics committee later this year.
The FBI is also conducting an ongoing investigation into payments to former FIFA officials.
Hayatou is also a member of the International Olympic Committee and was reprimanded by that body in 2011 for allegedly receiving about US$20,700 from FIFA’s former marketing agency International Sport and Leisure. The Olympic body accepted that he was not member at the time of the offense in 1995.
The 67-year-old former athlete, who has headed African soccer since 1987, was also accused by the Times of corruption relating to the 2022 World Cup vote in 2011.
“Like in 2011, the CAF president is waiting for the famous evidence from the Sunday Times and reserves the right to take legal action against any of those responsible for the smear campaign against him,” the federation’s statement said.
In their response to the allegations, the Qatari organizers said: “We are cooperating fully with Mr Garcia’s ongoing investigation and remain totally confident that any objective enquiry will conclude we won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup fairly... The right to host the tournament was won because it was the best bid and because it is time for the Middle East to host its first FIFA World Cup.”
The scandal has senior FIFA figures seriously considering the ramifications of ordering a rerun of the vote for the first time.
While awaiting the results of the probe into the 2018 and 2022 bidding races, senior figures heading to this year’s Cup in Brazil are understood to be considering a response if the report recommends a new vote.
FIFA vice president Jim Boyce of Britain said he would have “absolutely no problem” if the ethics committee recommends a new vote in light of proven wrongdoing.
In the UK, the government — humiliated over England’s bid for the 2018 tournament, which garnered just a single external vote — has previously said the allegations are a matter for FIFA, but British Minister for Sport and Tourism Helen Grant signaled a shift in this stance yesterday, saying: “These appear to be very serious allegations,” with British Shadow Minister for Sport Clive Efford adding: “This issue calls the governance of football into question. No one will have any confidence in a FIFA investigation run by [president] Sepp Blatter.”
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