adminJOHANNESBURG – A 2007 email shows FIFA president Sepp Blatter and then-South African President Thabo Mbeki held “discussions” over $10 million that ultimately went to allegedly corrupt soccer executives as payback for supporting the country’s World Cup bid, a newspaper claimed yesterday.
South Africa’s Sunday Times reported that the email from FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke to the South African government asks when the $10 million will be transferred.
The newspaper said that in the email, which was not published, Valcke wrote that the $10 million was “based on discussions between FIFA and the South African government, and also between our president (Blatter) and President Thabo Mbeki.”
American investigators alleged in their indictment into corruption in world soccer that the $10 million went to Jack Warner, who is currently under arrest, as payback for him and two other senior FIFA executives voting for South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup.
FIFA and the South African government have said it was money given legitimately by South Africa to help soccer development in Warner’s Caribbean region. Mbeki’s office denied any involvement in bribes in a statement when the FIFA corruption scandal broke.
However, the South African money ended up going directly to former FIFA vice president Warner of Trinidad and American Chuck Blazer, both former members of FIFA’s executive committee. Blazer has admitted to receiving bribes in connection with the 2004 vote that resulted in South Africa becoming the first African nation to host the World Cup.
Warner is one of 14 soccer and marketing officials indicted and under arrest on corruption charges, which include racketeering, bribery and money laundering.
Blatter quit as FIFA president last week with the world soccer body rocked by the biggest scandal in its 111-year history. The 79-year-old Blatter has not been specifically implicated in the Justice Department investigation.
In Valcke’s email, which is dated December 7, 2007, according to the Sunday Times, he refers to the $10 million as a commitment “to the legacy programme for the diaspora and specifically the Caribbean countries” and says it stems from talks between Blatter and Mbeki, who was president at the time of South Africa’s successful World Cup bid. He left office in 2008.
Valcke’s email pre-dates correspondence from then-chief South African World Cup organiser Danny Jordaan and then-South African Football Association president Molefi Oliphant asking FIFA to shave $10 million off South Africa’s World Cup budget to send to Warner. In Oliphant’s letter, he twice asks for the $10 million to be controlled specifically by Warner.
South Africa won the World Cup by beating Morocco 14-10 in a vote of FIFA’s ruling panel of executives in Zurich in 2004. The US DOJ alleges that vote was completely corrupted, with Warner, Blazer and an unnamed South American official agreeing to take bribes to back South Africa. Morocco also attempted to bribe Warner, the DOJ alleged in its indictment documents.
The DOJ said the $10 million used to pay off Warner and Blazer four years later was channeled from the South African government through FIFA to Warner and was dressed up to look like legitimate funds for soccer development.
Meanwhile, the 2010 World Cup vote was won by Morocco and not eventual host South Africa, according to sensational claims made yesterday.
Ismail Bhamjee, a FIFA executive committee member, is reported by the Sunday Times as having conferred with his exco colleagues in the wake of the decision, only to realise that Morocco had, in fact, won the secret ballot.
“After talking with everybody… about whose votes went where.
“We’re all colleagues, y’know. And then we found out that actually Morocco won by two votes.
“Please, this is very secret,” he added.
South Africa denies that the 2010 vote was rigged, while Bhamjee admits that exco members could have lied about their choices.
But the revelations are just one of a number on tapes acquired by the weekly newspaper.
Disgraced CONCACAF chief Jack Warner is alleged to have accepted a US$1million bribe from the Moroccan camp, only to then receive a US$10million payment from the South Africans and switch allegiance.
FIFA are now also understood to be facing charges for obstruction of justice over their refusal to address corruption within the organisation.
World football’s governing body failed to investigate these claims, despite being handed the tapes with the evidence in 2010, and FIFA ethics investigator also disregarded them when compiling his infamous report last year. — AFP
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