Hawks step in

JOHANNESBURG/BERLIN. — South African police force’s priority crime unit, the Hawks, said yesterday they are looking into allegations that the South African Football Association (SAFA) was involved in the bribery scandal surrounding the ruling body FIFA.

Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi said in a statement they have launched a preliminary investigation after the small parliamentary party Freedom Front Plus handed it documents allegedly implicating top SAFA officials in connection with a payment around the nation’s successful bid to host the 2010 World Cup.

“We have opened an inquiry file so that we investigate contents of the documents,” Mulaudzi said, stressing that this is not a formal probe and that officials such as SAFA president Danny Jordaan are not under investigation.

Australian police are reportedly also looking into a payment from their football federation around their unsuccessful 2022 bid – with former Caribbean and FIFA official Jack Warner at the centre of it just as in the South African case.

A British politician meanwhile said that England would be ready to host the 2022 World Cup if Qatar is stripped of it in connection with a Swiss probe into the 2018 and 2022 FIFA host country vote.

FIFA has been rocked by the corruption claims, with seven football officials arrested last week in Zurich ahead of the FIFA Congress where Joseph Blatter was re-elected for a fifth term on Friday but then announced his resignation on Tuesday.

South African Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula on Wednesday denied that the US$10 million payment made by his country to the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) was a bribe to secure the 2010 tournament, but rather was part of South Africa’s policy of supporting sports in Africa and its Diaspora.

The payment in 2008, four years after South Africa were chosen over Morocco and Egypt as hosts, went via FIFA to an account controlled by Warner, a former head of both the Central and North American soccer body CONCACAF and CFU, and FIFA vice-president.

Warner is one of 14 people indicted in the United States last week on bribery and corruption charges. Seven of them were arrested in Zurich on May 27 ahead of the FIFA congress. — DPA.