Posts Tagged ‘FIFA’
Watch FIFA wonk Ismail Bhamjee reveal the ‘rigged vote’ for World Cup 2010
The Sunday Times has a cracking story on FIFA troughing. The paper says back in October 2010 it showed FIFA a video of leading FIFA officials talking about bribery. Reporters gained access by posing as lobbyists.
The allegations are that the vote to host the 2010 World Cup was rigged in South Africa’s favour – and that Morocco was the actual winner.
Allegations are:
* The vote by 24 the Fifa executive committee (Exco) was rigged. At the final count South Africa (14) defeated Morroco (10) and Egypt (0).
* Ismail Bhamjee, an Exco member from Botswana, says: “After talking with everybody . . . Whose votes went where? We’re all colleagues, you know. And then we found out that actually Morocco won by two votes.” He says Exco members conferred after the vote and realised Morocco had won. Although Bhamjee says some some Exco members could have lied about their votes.
* The ballots were counted behind closed doors. Were they deliberately miscounted?
* It’s alleged FIFA suppressed the Sunday Times’ tapes and failed to investigate claims of bribery.
* It’s alleged members took bribes from Morocco and South Africa.
* Ahongalu Fusimalohi, the former Fifa Exco member from Tonga, says Morocco had offered him a $150,000 bribe for his vote. He did not take any money. But did others?
* It’s alleged that members Jack Warner, the former Fifa vice-president, took over $1m in bungs from both sides. Bhamjee is cited as having said: “I know they gave Jack Warner personally a lot of money for the Concacaf [Warner’s north America confederation]. But please, this is confidential.”
Michel Bacchini, a former Fifa director of competitions told the undercover reporters: “But Jack, they [the Moroccans] were paying him and at the end when they were voting here in Zurich, you know, he was making a big scene, he was running out of the hotel complaining that somebody was cheating. He was the guy who cheated, he was making a big scenario out of it. I know a hundred hundred per cent that he was voting for the South Africans and pretended to vote for the Moroccans. I always said you never have to pay any money upfront.”
FIFA has responded thus:
“It cannot have escaped even The Sunday Times’s attention that these matters are being investigated by the proper authorities, ie, government agencies, not newspapers. And Fifa is fully co-operating with these investigations.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 7th, June 2015 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Cat flats and a fleet of mobility scooters: what did the alleged bribe money buy FIFA?
Sepp Blatter is no longer president of Fifa. Four days after winning the vote to continue as Fifa boss, he’s resigned. He told a press conference:
“What matters to me is that when all of this is over, football is the winner”
Blatter said:
“Fifa needs a profound overhaul. While I have a mandate from the membership of Fifa, I do not feel that I have a mandate from the entire world of football – the fans, the players, the clubs, the people who live, breathe and love football as much as we all do at Fifa. Therefore, I have decided to lay down my mandate at an extraordinary elective Congress. I will continue to exercise my functions as Fifa president until that election. Fifa needs profound restructuring. The interests of Fifa are very dear to me and that is why I have taken this decision [to resign].”
Or as FA chairman Greg Dyke, the FA chairman put it:
“He has stood down. He has gone. Let’s celebrate.”
But one thing we want to know is: what did the alleged bribe money buy? As Dyke says:
“We want to know where the money has gone.”
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FIFA: Jack Warner denies illegality with an article from The Onion
Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner has been accused of racketeering. He’s been arrested. Warner says he’s innocent. Warner says his arrest is rooted in the US’s failed World Cup bid.
He accuses the US of gross hypocrisy. How can the US attack FIFA when it was offered the World Cup 2015.
“The U.S. applied to hold the World Cup in 2022 and they lost the bid to Qatar — a small country, an Arabic country, a Muslim country,” says Warner. “I could understand the U.S. embarrassment… Why is it [American prosecutors] believe that they have a right to the World Cup?”
He cites a story that FIFA allowed the US to stage the 2015 World Cup:
“Summer World Cup, 2015, from the very same organization that they are accusing of being corrupt. That has to be double standards.”
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Time to kick FIFA out and begin the ‘True World Cup’
ON the cries to boycott FIFA and its tournaments, Deutsche Welle’s Jefferson Chase is spot on.
Let’s play a game of free association. I’ll say a word, and you tell me what immediately pops to mind. The word is FIFA. So what did you think of? Bribery? Corruption? Blatter? What about “nauseating?” That’s the word that great English striker Gary Lineker used when he was asked about football’s world governing body…
Here’s Lineker making a sound case for a show of power:
…
There’s no need for any discussions, dialogue or compromises. It’s is now up to the world’s leading football nations, acting alone or with in organizations like UEFA, to sever their ties with FIFA. They should immediately begin discussions about where to hold the “True World Cup,” or whatever they want to call it, in 2018 and 2022. Can you imagine what the sponsors’ reaction would be? And how Blatter supporter Vladimir Putin would like that?
Money makes the world goes round, and that goes double for football. If there’s a serious threat that the world’s top teams might not play in the World Cup, Blatter would be forced to tender his resignation within a matter of days, and Friday’s FIFA vote would essentially become an act of institutional suicide. Which, in a better world, is what it should be.
FIFA troughs on…
Fifa: the buck stops with Sepp Blatter, but not literally
Sepp Blatter stands a still better chance of securing a fifth term as head of Fifa as rivals are mired. In Switzerland, seven senior Fifa officials have been arrested – including vice-presidents Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo. The FBI accuses them and seven other men of illegally milking football.
Loretta Lynch, the US attorney-general, says:
“The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States. It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.”
Lesson one: if you are going to do iffy deals, don’t do them in US dollars.
The men were all staying at the luxurious five-star Baur au Lac when they were arrested. They were part of a 200-strong gathering for the Fifa Congress. Rooms at the Baur are priced at £391 for a single (and amount is known in Fifa circles as a ‘drink of water’, allegedly.)
But what says Sepp Blatter, Fifa’s head man? Does the buck stop with him, so to speak? His spokesman says Fifa is “the injured party”:
“You don’t believe me but I say it again: this for Fifa is good. It’s not good for image, not good for reputation, but in terms of cleaning up [the sport], this is good.”
As Blatter is driven up the Champs Elysées in triumph, what about those World Cups in Russia and Qatar?
“The World Cups 2018 and 2022 will be played in Russia and Qatar.”
And inside football’s rotten rooms of power, nothing changes…
Dead man muck-raking: FIFA told talks with Blatter
THERE’S something near-admirable about the way Sepp Blatter runs FIFA. He clearly couldn’t give the slightest of tosses about people knowing what he’s been up to. He’s got the crooked swagger of Emperor Palpatine, cackling his way around the corridors of power, cackling ‘really though, what are you going to do about it?’
You suspect that he’s got a room filled with folders, with the most unspeakably awful dirt on some of his colleagues who are brave enough to challenge him.
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World Cup Fix: Phaedra Almajid And The Cult Of Conspiracy
IN “Fixer’s World Cup offer to England” the Sunday Times has the latest news from Planet FIFA:
FIFA’S attempt to whitewash Qatar’s winning 2022 World Cup campaign is blown apart today by fresh evidence of corruption. Qatar was cleared last week by a Fifa ethics judge who ruled that Mohamed bin Hammam, the country’s top football boss whose corrupt activities were exposed by The Sunday Times, was “distant” from the official 2022 bid team.
The Sunday Times today reveals further evidence, however, that Bin Hammam was actively engaged in illicit activities to secure the votes needed to bring the 2022 World Cup to the desert state.
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FIFA Corruption: Shock: 5 Amazing Facts From Qatar And Russia’s World Cup Bids
FIFA have investigated allegations that FIFA takes bribes – that the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar and 2018 trough-fest to Russia are fixes. FIFA has been found by their own investigation to be cleaner than Mother Teresa’s laptop. The investigation also discovered:
FACT: The World Cup 2014 did not take place in Brazil
FACT: Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, looks terrific in body-hugging manmade fibres and if he were a female would be delighted to help the women’s game by wearing his tightest shorts on the field of play
FACT: It didn’t cross the line in 1966 and England are the cheating scum of the earth
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Hark at FIFA’s 10 Best Goals of The Year!
TEN outrageously good goals have been named on the shortlist for the FIFA Puskás Award for the best goal of the year. Makes a nice change from all the political jostling and allegations of corruption and the like, what has been blighting football at the minute.
There’ll be no controversy about the quality of the goals chosen (but you may feel that one of your favourites was unfairly missed off the list, but that’s football for you).
Included are James Rodriguez’s absolute peach from the World Cup and, from Mexico, the dazzling Marco Fabian crops up with an audacious dink from a million miles out. Zlatan’s ridiculous backheel volley gets a look-in too!
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World Cup Balls: John Oliver Nails FIFA (Video)
SO. FIFA is not the hot bed of love and equality we thought it was. It turns out that football is run by greed. John Oliver told of his shock and dismay on Last Week Tonight:
The negative publicity has been so overwhelming that even some of the World Cup’s biggest and longest-serving sponsors, including Adidas and Sony, have expressed concern. “The negative tenor of the public debate around FIFA at the moment is neither good for football nor for FIFA and its partners,” a spokesman for Adidas told The Guardian. Perhaps corporate pressure will accomplish what mockery and muckraking have failed to do: convince FIFA to reform.
Revealed: The Dirtiest Teams In The History Of The World Cup Are Not South American
Argentina’s soccer star Diego Maradona, left, and West German goalkeeper Harald Schumacher with some wonderfully not-bitter France fans
ANDROS Townsend, the Spurs sub with five England caps tells readers of his Sun column:
“I don’t want to generalise but it’s usually the South American teams that resort to dirty tactics. And – at a World Cup – you have to be prepared for that.”
He doesn’t want to generalise. But he will. Those dirty Latins, eh.
But is he right?
No.
And, as this chart shows, the dirty teams don’t do well.
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Posted: 9th, June 2014 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
FIFA To Investigate Flares But Probably Not Racism
AS everyone knows, FIFA are a bunch of clowns. They’re like local councillors raiding the buffet car and talking about golf swings while property developers build a car park on the only playground in town.
While they pick tuna from their teeth, they could be looking at a World Cup boycotted by black footballers. After the scenes in Moscow, when Manchester City’s Yaya Toure claims he was racially abused by CSKA fans, all black players are wondering whether they want to play at the 2018 World Cup in Russia at all.
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Fifa orders Brazil to sell watery beer at World Cup
FIFA, eh? Watching over us all with ever-loving grace. Fighting the good fight. Tackling the real issues that threaten to undermine our beloved game with feverish haste and ruthless efficiency. Racism? Dealt with. Corruption? Ditto. Homophobia? Eradicated. Gifting World Cup hosting rights to very rich countries with ‘questionable’ human rights records? Not an issue.
Now some sages in Brazil have made it illegal for beer to be sold in football stadiums and those very same bozos are pleading that the law be kept in place for the 2014 World Cup due to concerns over safety.
Thankfully FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has, metaphorically of course, kicked them square in the nuts:
“Alcoholic drinks are part of the World Cup, so we’re going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that’s something we won’t negotiate. The fact that we have the right to sell beer has to be a part of the law.”
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Sepp Blatter’s Friends Agree Racism Is No Big Deal: Spurs Boss Harry Redknapp Wishes Fifa Boss Was British
AS Fifa’s Swiss president Sepp Blatter continues his mission to shake hands with everyone black and thereby cure the world of racism, we take a look at Harry Redknapp’s words in the Sun. The Spurs manager pretty much sums up the British position on this story by saying that things would be better were Blatter one of us:
“Not everyone likes Michel Platini but at least everyone appreciates he knows his stuff about football. He was a great player so the people who pay to go through the turnstiles accept he knows what he is talking about. Maybe if Blatter had been like Bobby Charlton or a great manager like Sir Alex Ferguson you would have more respect for his opinion.”
Yep. Were Blatter British and not Swiss – 99% of Swiss think shaking hands with a black man is a stop too far – we’d respect his opinion that racism does not exist.
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Posted: 20th, November 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Go Now, Doughty: Daily Mail And Sepp Blatter In Race Row
“GO NOW BLATTER,” screams the Daily Mail’s back-page headline.
“Blatter dismissed racism as a problem on the football field, arguing that any such incident should be settled with a handshake at the end of the game.”
Blatter has to go. Just has to. As he said:
“‘I would deny it. There is no racism, there is maybe one of the players towards another, he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one, but also the one who is affected by that… He should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen…And on the field of play sometimes you say something that is not very correct, but then at the end of the game, the game is over and you have the next game where you can behave better.”
Mail readers may also care to take view on Steve Doughty, who wrote
“Things may not be perfect but, at the end of the day, Gary, there are worse things to complain about. So, Mr Evra and Mr Ferdinand, I know you feel insulted. But perhaps in this case you could just put up with it and get on with the game.”
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Fifa Awards World Cup TV Rights To Sepp Blatter’s Nephew Joseph Blatter
FIFA have appointed Infront Sports and Media as the organisation’s “exclusive sales representative for the distribution of Asian broadcast rights” for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Phew! Those negotiations were surely painstaking. And then there must have been a lengthy tendering process.
Niclas Ericson, FIFA’s director of TV, assures us:
“Infront offered the best package for this important and very complex project both in financial as well as marketing aspects. We believe that the team will deliver the best possible results for FIFA and help us achieve our distribution and financial objectives in Asia.”
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Posted: 28th, October 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Zionist FIFA Hates Me Because I’m Black: Trinidad’s Side-lined Jack Warner Plays Race Card
FORMER FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner says football’s world governing body is racist, zionist and discriminates against non-whites .
Warner, still Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Works, says so in a letter to the Trinidad Guardian newspaper. It gives no detail to support the allegations, claiming he will reveal all after sacked FIFA Vice-President Mohamed Bin Hammam’s case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Warner was due to appear in the same FIFA Ethics Committee inquiry which booted out Bin Hammam but quit before the hearing and did not appear.
“I will talk about the racism that is within FIFA,” Warner said, “I will talk about the zionism, which probably is the most important reason why this acrid attack on Bin Hammam and me was mounted. There is much to talk about that will make sponsors cringe with painful surprise.”
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Posted: 20th, October 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Sure FIFA Is A Stinking Bed Of Corruption But Where’s The Evidence?
HATS off to Mohamed bin Hammam who has bravely, selfishly, and, dare it go unsaid, honourably, withdrawn from the FIFA presidential race moments before the election. It thus follows that in a field on one, noble Sepp Blatter will be re-elected as the FIFA president.
He will be the head of a grandiose body that promises:
For the Game. For the World.
The world is a place rich in natural beauty and cultural diversity, but also one where many are still deprived of their basic rights. FIFA now has an even greater responsibility to reach out and touch the world, using football as a symbol of hope and integration.
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Fifa, Nazis, Corruption And How Money Always Wins
FIFA is in the mire. Almost six months down the line following Fifa’s firm kick in the goolies to English World Cup aspirations – and the whole rotten House of Cards seems to be getting more than very shaky.
Posted: 28th, May 2011 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
World Cup 2022: Free Qatar Buys Straight Footballers (Gays Banned)
THE will be NO gays at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Homosexuality is banned in the football outpost. The French are not banned and neither are Jews and the colour red, but absolute monarchy is good at getting things down, so they might be.
Sepp Blatter says that anyone looking to be gay or having gay thoughts in 2022 Qatar “should refrain from any sexual activities“.
He goes on to say that “we are living in a world of freedom”.
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Posted: 14th, December 2010 | In: Sports | Comments (8)
FIFA Is A Rotten State That England Was Too Needy To Expose
ANDY Anson led England’s failed bid to host the 2018 World Cup. He blamed the media for contributing to the chance of failure. He said it was unpatriotic to criticise FIFA, that venal organisation that sees football as it chattel:
“I’m incredibly disappointed with the timing of what the BBC is proposing with Panorama… It’s not very patriotic of the BBC. They could have done it any time in the last two years or next two years.”
Had the BBC “done it” in the last two years no-one would have noticed. Timing was everything. The Sunday Times’s investigation into cash-for-votes caused two FIFA ExCo members to be suspended. Anyhow, now the bid is lost, Anson says:
“I would say right now don’t bother (bidding) unless you know the process is going to change. When there are only 22 guys that gives them too much influence.”
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FIFA And Qatar’s World Cup Fix: The Fake Brietling Watch Gift
I HAVE absolutely no interest in football whatsoever. But here’s a true-life story for soccer fans weeping over FIFA’s World Cup preference for Russia and Qatar.
Last time I was in Qatar, booked into a 6* suite courtesy of [deleted for legal reasons], my stay coincided with that of FIFA reps there on official business. Returning to my room one evening I was delighted to find a wrapped gift on my bed. It was a beautiful Brietling watch. However, from the label, I quickly deduced I was not the intended beneficiary: it read something like ‘To our FIFA guest’. It transpired later the hotel had wrongly allocated me a FIFA suite.
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Posted: 3rd, December 2010 | In: Key Posts | Comment (1)
Fifa Use Technology To Find England On World Cup Pitch: Photos
MAURICIO Espinola and Jorge Larrionda were the FIFA linesman and the referee, respectively, at England’s World Cup match against the Germans. Thanks to them and technology England fell to their worst World cup defeat ever. Yes, readers, it could have been 4-2.
Or it might have been 15-2. Or 45-2. One Scots fans has reviewed the footage and estimates that it could have been 321-3. that tape is now with Alan Hansen.
As it was the England team went missing. And no-one can see them. Where were they?
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Iran And North Korea Avert World Cup War
IRAN 0 – North Korea 0. The FT:
He’ll shoot, he’ll score
He’ll eat your labrador
Kim Jonh Il
Football fans the world over love to tell anyone who will listen that their sport is “not just a game” – it means so much more than that.
You dirty northern bastards…
But the clash between North Korea and Iran in Pyongyang on Saturday could be one of those occasions when the cliché actually proves true. A World Cup qualifier between the two remaining members of George W. Bush’s infamous axis of evil – one fresh from a nuclear test, the other accused by some of wanting to conduct its own – sparks all sorts of international intrigue.
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