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Fifa officials 'offer to sell 2018 World Cup bid votes'

Fifa will reveal who will stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cups on 2 December

Two Fifa officials have offered to sell their votes in the contest to host the 2018 World Cup, according to a Sunday Times report.

The newspaper has video footage in which Nigerian Amos Adamu, a Fifa executive committee member, appears to ask for £500,000.

This is completely against Fifa rules.

And Oceania Football Confederation president Reynald Temarii, wanted money for a sports academy for his vote, which will take place on 2 December.

England are competing to host the tournament in eight years time, as well as Russia and joint bids from Spain and Portugal and Holland and Belgium.

A 24-strong committee will decide by secret ballot who should host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The footage, filmed by undercover Sunday Times journalists, shows Adamu wanting money to be paid to him directly for endorsing a bid.

The reporters had posed as lobbyists for a United States bid. The US decided on Friday to withdraw from the running for the 2018 World Cup and instead concentrate on the 2022 competition.

In the video, Adamu was asked whether the money for a "private project" would have an effect on the way he voted, he replied: "Obviously, it will have an effect. of course it will. Because certainly if you are to invest in that, that means you also want the vote."

Fifa has so far not responded to the allegations.

Source: bbc.co.uk

I think the biggest shock here is that it wasn't the News of the World and their 'fake Shiek' breaking this story. Fucking corrupt arseholes, they had better be out of a job before the vote takes place.

Edited by Jamеs
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Fifa has provisionally suspended officials Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii over allegations of corruption.

The Fifa executive committee members are accused of offering to sell their votes in the contest to host the 2018 World Cup ahead of December's ballot.

They were secretly filmed by Sunday Times reporters, who posed as lobbyists for a consortium of American companies that wanted the event to go to the US.

Fifa will meet again in mid-November to make a final decision.

At that meeting Fifa will also study alleged agreements between member associations and their bid committees in relation to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process.

There is no discussion about the postponement of the decision on 2 December for the time being

Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke

The world governing body did not specify which countries could be under scrutiny.

Rumours of collusion between a 2018 bidder and a 2022 hopeful surfaced in September, prompting Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke to warn all countries that mutual voting deals are against Fifa rules.

England, Russia, Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium are competing to stage the 2018 World Cup, while the United States, Australia, Qatar, Japan and South Korea are all in the hunt for 2022.

Fifa's 24-man executive committee will decide who wins both ballots on 2 December when they meet in Zurich to conduct a secret vote.

The US - the last remaining non-European bidder - pulled out of the running for 2018 on Friday to focus its efforts on 2022. On the same day, England pulled out of the bidding to host in 2022.

"The process for 2018 and 2022 has been perfectly well managed and organised," said Valcke on Wednesday. "There is no discussion about the postponement of the decision on 2 December for the time being."

The allegations of vote selling have plunged the selection process into crisis and Fifa chief executive Sepp Blatter admitted "it was a sad day for football" before insisting "confidence will be restored".

Nigerian Adamu allegedly said he wanted $800,000 (£500,000) to build four artificial football pitches. This would be against Fifa's rules.

The Sunday Times footage appears to show him asking for money to be paid to him directly for endorsing a US bid.

Tahitian Temarii, who is alleged to have asked for a payment to finance a sports academy, has already pleaded his innocence.

"I am 100% convinced of my integrity," Temarii, head of Fifa's technical and development committee, previously told Inside World Football. "That's why I have stayed on."

Temarii suggested his comments on the Sunday Times video had been taken out of context.

However Fifa ethics committee chairman Claudio Sulser explained that the decision to provisionally suspend Adamu and Temarii was "fully justified and should not be put in question".

"It is crucial to protect the integrity of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process. We are determined to have zero tolerance for any breach of the code of ethics," he added.

Four other Fifa officials - Slim Aloulou, Amadou Diakite, Ahongalu Fusimalohi and Ismail Bhamjee - have also been provisionally suspended.

Completly the right decision to suspend the pair involved until all this is sorted. I'd love to know what context the comments were in that makes this all innocent. Would be interesting to know why the other four have been suspended.

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  • 2 weeks later...

THIS WEEK, on "FIFA are petty hypocritical dickwads"...

England's 2018 bid "significantly harmed" by newspaper revelations

Let's just go over the facts, one by one.

* A British newspaper (The Times) conducts an undercover investigation into corruption. This essentially involves walking up to a FIFA official and asking "Would you sell your vote for money?", to which they say "Yeah sure".

* FIFA are outraged that this kind of journalism should have taken place. They are in fact more outraged about this than the fact their own institution is a corrupt mockery of itself. It would have been much better if the corruption would have been allowed to continue quietly without anyone knowing about it.

* FIFA then take that outrage at this British newspaper and use it to blame the England 2018 bid. Presumably they are assuming that the England Bid team are responsible for controlling the free press and should have kept all the English newspapers on a tighter censorship leash. Either that, or they are so angry at English things that they now hate all of them.

* Sepp Blatter asks the following:

"Who is benefiting from this situation and who is being harmed, we are asking ourselves why did it happen and why did it happen specifically by English journalists? We are looking at that."

I have your answer for you, Sepp.

1) The people who are benefiting from this situation is FIFA. At least, the members of FIFA who actually wish to run an upstanding sporting institution, rather than the ones who wish to take bribes. I concede that there might not be a lot of you to benefit from this.

2) The people who are being harmed are the FIFA officials who were exposed as corrupt. Surely they therefore deserve to be harmed, yes?

3) It happened because it was so very, very easy. Frankly, your corrupt officials aren't even very good at covering themselves. That, and also because the world has a right to know if we're being conned.

4) Why an English journalist? Pure chance, maybe. Anyone could have done it. Or maybe none of them had the balls. Are you suggesting the Times journalist was a plant from the England 2018 Bid team, Sepp? Is that what you're doing?

I am sorely tempted to rename this thread the "The FIFA Are Douchebags Thread".

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Renamed the thread slightly to make it more multi-purpose...and was regrettably forced to remove the word 'Douchebags', since it needn't be exclusive to complaining. :P

And in fact this thing is not a complaint, but rather a question of curiosity.

Platini will be unopposed in UEFA re-election

I'm always a bit bemused when elections are unopposed for anything. Is this likely to be because everyone in UEFA *hearts* what Platini is doing, or might it perhaps be that the job is awful and no one else wants it? :shifty:

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A top official has resigned from Fifa's ethics commission after claiming the organisation showed "no real interest" in tackling alleged corruption.

German lawyer Guenter Hirsch's decision to quit comes weeks after Russia and Qatar were controversially awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Allegations of corruption dogged Fifa before and during the election.

But in a statement football's governing body questioned Hirsch's attendance record at ethics committee meetings.

In a letter to ethics commission president Claudio Sulser, the out-going Hirsch wrote: "The events of the past few weeks have raised and strengthened the impression that responsible persons in Fifa have no real interest in playing an active role in resolving, punishing and avoiding violations against ethic regulations of Fifa."

The BBC contacted Hirsch on Monday but the 67-year-old he said he "will not and cannot" say more about his resignation from the organisation.

Fifa responded by issuing a statement which read: "As an independent judicial body, the [ethics] committee has decision-making power and the option to establish any sanctions they deem appropriate.

"Notably, the ethics committee had the mandate to overlook the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 Fifa World Cups and to ensure that the rules of conduct and the Code of Ethics were adhered to during this process."

The statement added: "Hirsch was a member of the ethics committee since the creation of this committee and attended the inaugural meeting in October 2006.

"Since then, Hirsch has not attended any other meetings of the committee, despite being invited to attend every meeting held in the past four years."

During the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process, Fifa suspended executive committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii over allegations they offered to sell their votes, something the pair vehemently denied.

They both subsequently missed December's ballot in which Russia was chosen to host the 2018 tournament and Qatar the 2022 finals, following a secret vote by the remaining 22 committee members.

England gained only two votes as Russia was handed the 2018 World Cup, while Australia fared even worse, receiving only one vote as Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 event.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, one of the figureheads of England's bid, told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that he was personally misled by a number of Fifa executives when he lobbied them for support.

He said: "We had a great bid - technically, I think, by far the best bid - and I think the presentation we made was compelling. I definitely had a number of those Fifa executives who looked me in the eye and shook my hand and said, 'Don't worry, we're with you.'

"I'm afraid that the world of football governance is rather murky in that way."

Last week, Fifa president Sepp Blatter announced plans to set up an anti-corruption committee to police the organisation as he seeks re-election for a fourth four-year term.

But Cameron said: "I think we will have to judge that by the results."

Meanwhile, on Monday night Fifa hosts the Ballon D'or awards, with Spanish pair Andres Iniesta and Xavi competing with Lionel Messi for the World Player of the Year trophy.

Nice to see someone within standing up against those corrupt; shame that it won't make a jot of difference.

Argentina and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi has won the inaugural Fifa Ballon d'Or award at a ceremony in Zurich.

Messi, 23, won the prize - a merger of the Fifa Player of the Year prize and Ballon d'Or - ahead of his Barca team-mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi.

"I'm surprised to win but pleased to be here with my friends," said Messi, who won the two separate awards last year.

Jose Mourinho, who won an unprecedented Treble with Inter Milan in 2010, was named the Coach of the Year.

Messi added: "To win it makes it even more special. I want to share it with all of my friends, my family, all the Barcelonistas and the Argentinians."

Hamit Altintop won the Puskas Award for Goal of the Year for his wonder volley when Turkey played Kazakhstan, Brazilian striker Marta won the Women's Player of the Year for a fifth consecutive time and Germany's Silvia Neid won the Women's Coach of the Year.

The last player to win the Ballon d'Or award twice in a row was Dutch striker Marco van Basten in 1988 and 1989, while Messi's former Barca colleague Ronaldinho won the Fifa prize in 2004 and 2005.

Many thought Iniesta, who scored the winning goal as Spain beat Netherlands 1-0 in the World Cup final in Johannesburg in July, and Xavi, who was the lynchpin of the Spanish side, were favourites to win at a glittering ceremony in Switzerland.

But Messi scored a remarkable 60 goals for club and country in 2010 and is widely regarded as the most gifted footballer of his generation.

The only Spanish winner of either prize was Luis Suarez who won the Ballon D'Or in 1960.

The coaching prize is the latest accolade in a glittering career for Mourinho, who has won league titles in Portugal, England and Italy.

"The most important things for me are the collective titles, not the individual ones," said Mourinho, who left Inter to join Real Madrid in the summer.

The Ballon d'Or is awarded based on votes cast by journalists from around the world, as well as coaches and captains of national teams.

To find out how people voted, click here.

No real shocks there. Feel gutted for the Glentoran lad who scored that classy backheeled volley!

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  • 4 weeks later...
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Goal-line technology, extra assistants and, of all things, snoods are on the International Football Association Board's agenda for their next meeting.

Snoods have been put under any other business for when football's lawmakers meet on 5 March and, to the horror of some stars, may be banned.

Samir Nasri, Carlos Tevez and Emmanuel Adebayor are all fans of the winter fashion accessory.

"We want a debate whether it could be dangerous," said a Fifa spokesman.

"There may be a safety issue - if for example a player was running through on goal and an opponent grabbed his snood, that could pose a potential danger to his neck."

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has claimed snoods help prevent injury to his players, while his Manchester United counterpart Sir Alex Ferguson has banned his players from wearing them.

United centre-back Rio Ferdinand has said on social networking website Twitter: "You won't see a Man Utd player wearing a snood."

Former Old Trafford midfielder Roy Keane is also not a fan of snoods.

He said of players wearing the snood: "They've all gone soft. I don't know how they do it and focus on the game, it's weird. That's the way the game's gone."

On the subject of fashion, Fifa also wants to make sure that if a player wears tights then they are the same colour as their shorts.

The introduction of 'vanishing spray' - which allows the referee to mark out a line a defensive wall from a set piece should not cross - is also up for debate.

The spray is used in Brazil and South America and evaporates after a minute.

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