lol, FIFA

[Thrilla]

Title?

[Matt]

I'm currently reading a book about the Qatari bid for the World Cup. There is SO much dodgyness. 

In other news,  water is wet.

[MDK]

Title?

The Ugly Game

I'm currently reading a book about the Qatari bid for the World Cup. There is SO much dodgyness. 

In other news,  water is wet.

I know, but I didn't expect there to be this much. Energy deals with Thailand to secure votes? dafuq?

[lanky316]

There's basically one book that gets a "find and replace" on it that analyses every major sporting event and the corruption involved.  The funniest/saddest part is the complete lack of subtlety involved.

[MDK]

And what is with the secret ballot to decide who gets the WC? It makes bribes pointless. "I will vote for you, yes give me money. lol doesn't matter, my vote isn't counted anyway"

[MDK]

Winter World Cup it is!

[Lineker]

Winter World Cup it is!

November 21st-December 18th 2022.

[MDK]

What a load of bollocks

[Lineker]

Swiss investigators are now questioning Sepp Blatter themselves. Or at least their representatives are.

[Benji]

Like it matters. Nothing will change. The corrupt will keep their power or it'll transfer to someone just as corrupt. This shit never changes.

[Lineker]

Criminal proceedings have been opened against Blatter by the Swiss attorney general. It is alleged he made a disloyal payment to Michel Platini in 2011. Also  suspected of criminal mismanagement or misappropriation over TV rights deal signed with Jack Warner in 2005.

They've supposedly turned his office upside down as well.

[Monkey D. Lars]

I also heard that Platini has given them evidence.

[MDK]

Most of the Fifa Exco are dodgy when it comes to money. Bin Hammam and Blatter might be the worse. I think it was the President of the OFC was caught discussing bribes quite openly with some American journo's.

[Lineker]

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, who was favourite to succeed the Fifa president until a dramatic intervention by the Swiss attorney general, are both now understood to be under formal investigation by Fifa’s independent ethics committee and could be suspended within days.

If Platini was provisionally suspended while Fifa’s investigatory continued to look into the issues raised by the Swiss attorney general when criminal proceedings were opened against Blatter on Friday, he would be automatically ruled out of the presidential race.

Platini, who cooperated with Swiss investigators by answering questions on a two million Swiss francs payment from Blatter, that was said to be made to the detriment of the world governing body, has said he was owed the money from a contract with Fifa between 1999 and 2002 but has not explained why it took nine years for the invoice to be paid. It is understood that Fifa investigators, headed by Cornel Borbély, have formally opened files on both men and are expected to liaise with the Swiss attorney general.

While they were already looking into some issues raised, including a 2005 World Cup television rights deal between Fifa and Jack Warner, the former head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, that was signed off by Blatter, the matter of the 2011 payment to Platini was not among them.

They will interrogate both Blatter and Platini before deciding within days whether to issue a provisional suspension. One source said there was “no way” Platini, who fell out with the long-standing Fifa president when he reneged on an agreement to step down in 2011, could stand if he was suspended.

Even if he is not suspended, the French Uefa president faces the prospect of a so-called integrity check by the same ethics committee before he is allowed to submit his candidature on 24 October.

If Blatter were suspended, it is assumed he would stand down immediately given that he has promised to do so anyway in February.

Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, the Jordanian FA chief who was beaten to the presidency by Blatter in May and was an outsider to win next February’s election before Friday’s dramatic events, said he had heard from many of Fifa’s 209 member associations since Blatter was questioned and his computers seized.

“Change, as I have always said is a process. It is not an event. The process of change at Fifa began in May,” he said.

“We have an opportunity in February to carry that momentum forward. We must come together and work to restore Fifa’s credibility and reputation by bringing about the change that is so clearly needed.”

However, others outside Fifa including Transparency International maintain that Prince Ali is also compromised by his four-year spell on Fifa’s executive committee and continue to call for an independent root and branch governance review.

Clive Efford, the shadow sports minister, said: “That Sepp Blatter has been allowed to stay on at the helm of Fifa, despite the numerous scandals he has been mired in, raises serious concerns about the organisation’s ability to tackle corruption. It is time to end the Blatter era and the corruption that came with it.”

[stokeriño]

What is a 'disloyal' payment? Is this simply the new euphamism for 'illegal'?

[MDK]

What is a 'disloyal' payment? Is this simply the new euphamism for 'illegal'?

Maybe it was a bung vote a favourable vote for the WC or for FIFA Presidency and then they went and voted against them.

Which would be hilarious.

[Gazz]

Platini said it was his 'wages'.

[MDK]

In the book about the Qatar World Cup they mentioned something about that. But they mentioned A LOT of dodgy dealings. I think the guys name is Amadou and he was Bin Hammam's 'fixer' and he would bung people left, right and centre. Slush funds, made up companies, all that business. In a report about the potential venues for the 2022 WC Qatar came in last for how easy it would be to organise and it came last in a report about potential security risks.

Apparently the reason that England didn't get the WC is because he didn't cheat. We gave out some watches but that was it. 

[Lineker]

Sepp Blatter has said he will remain as president of Fifa, reiterating that “he had done nothing illegal or improper” after criminal proceedings were opened against him last Friday by the Swiss attorney general.

Blatter returned to work at Fifa headquarters three days after being interrogated there by Swiss investigators, and was due to address staff at the scandal-battered governing body.

Blatter is awaiting a possible announcement from the Fifa ethics committee on whether he will be suspended as a result of the Swiss investigation into possible criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of Fifa money.

“President Blatter spoke to Fifa staff today and informed the staff that he was cooperating with the authorities, reiterated that he had done nothing illegal or improper and stated that he would remain as president of Fifa,” Blatter’s lawyer Lorenz Erni noted in a statement.

“On the Platini matter, President Blatter on Friday shared with the Swiss authorities the fact that Mr. Platini had a valuable employment relationship with Fifa serving as an advisor to the president beginning in 1998.

“He explained to the prosecutors that the payments were valid compensation and nothing more and were properly accounted for within Fifa including the withholding of Social Security contributions.

“Because of the continuing investigation President Blatter will answer no further questions at this time.”

Meanwhile, Michel Platini is coming under increasing pressure to fully explain the circumstances of a £1.35m payment he received from Fifa in 2011 for work done more than nine years previously.

The Uefa president is standing in the election in February to succeed Sepp Blatter but is now under investigation from Fifa’s ethics committee – as is Blatter himself. Reform campaigners say unless Platini can publicly clarify the details surrounding the payment he should withdraw from the election.

The Swiss attorney general’s officers interviewed Platini as a witness on Friday, after opening criminal proceedings against Blatter.

The timing of the payment in February 2011 needs to be explained, say campaigners. At the time Blatter was facing a challenge to his presidency from Mohamed bin Hammam and less than two months later Uefa declared its support for the incumbent president.

Blatter is also being investigated by prosecutors over TV rights deals he signed off in 2005 with the now disgraced former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner.

Damian Collins, the MP who founded the campaign group New FIFA Now, said there are key questions that Fifa and Platini need to answer. “If Michel Platini is not able to clarify matters relating to his contract with Fifa and why he received such a large payment in 2011 for work he had supposedly completed nine years before, he should withdraw from the forthcoming Fifa presidential election,” he said.

“Was the £1.35m accrued in Fifa’s accounts from 1999? If it wasn’t it would be a breach of Sepp Blatter’s duties and would suggest that there was not believed to be any outstanding payments due to Mr Platini. Will Fifa and Michel Platini publish his contract and all correspondence relating to this payment? Finally, when did Michel Platini first raise the issue of the money he was owed by Fifa?”

Platini is understood to be preparing to send a letter to Uefa’s 54 member associations to clarify the circumstances surrounding the payment.

[Lineker]

Michel Platini, the head of European football's governing body Uefa, is being treated as "in between a witness and an accused person'' by Swiss prosecutors investigating corruption at the world football authority Fifa.