The Qatar Stuff

[gkmacca]

For anyone who's interested, here is the Sunday Times stuff:

THE secrets of how Qatar’s top football chief exploited his nation’s vast sovereign wealth to help win crucial votes for its World Cup bid are revealed in explosive documents leaked to The Sunday Times.

Fresh disclosures from the Fifa files show how Mohamed bin Hammam, the disgraced Fifa vice-president, pulled strings at the top of government and with the country’s royal family to arrange meetings and favours for key voters in the months leading up to the World Cup ballot.
The Qatar 2022 committee has maintained it has no links to Bin Hammam since this newspaper last week exposed the slush funds he used to make secret payments of more than $5m in his campaign to seal support for the tiny country’s World Cup dream.

But fresh disclosures from the documents today threaten to blow a hole in its claims that he was an “entirely separate” individual with “no official or unofficial role in the bid”. Pressure on world football’s governing body, Fifa, to take action over this newspaper’s evidence intensified last night when the first of its big sponsors, the Japanese electronics giant Sony, broke ranks and called for the damning disclosures to be “investigated appropriately”.

Mohamed bin Hammam, the disgraced Fifa vice-president, used secret slush funds (Lai Seng Sin)
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, piled on further pressure, telling The Sunday Times there would be an “overwhelming case for the bidding process to be reopened immediately” if the “startling” evidence in the Fifa files was proven.

The cache of hundreds of millions of documents leaked from the heart of world football today reveals that Bin Hammam:

■ Brokered government-level talks for the Thai member of Fifa’s executive committee (Exco) to push a gas deal that was potentially worth tens of millions of dollars to Thailand
■ Was invited to visit Vladimir Putin to discuss “bilateral relations” in sport between Qatar and Russia a month before their landslide victories in the 2018 and 2022 votes
■ Invited the former Exco member Franz Beckenbauer to Doha with bosses from an oil and gas shipping firm, which was employing him as a consultant, to discuss Qatari investments in the maritime sector
■ Fixed discreet meetings with the Qatari royal family for at least seven key Exco members, including the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter
■ Shored up his own seat on Exco by using secret slush funds to make payments totalling $1.7m to football officials across Asia.

The contents of the Fifa files have reverberated around the globe since The Sunday Times revealed last week Bin Hammam’s secret campaign to buy up support for the Qatar World Cup bid.

Blatter has maintained a public silence on the allegations since the story broke, despite mounting pressure to strip Qatar of the 2022 World Cup and order a rerun of the vote. He is also facing growing calls for his own resignation.

Michael Garcia, Fifa’s in-house investigator, further enraged critics last week by announcing that he would cut short his investigation into corruption in the World Cup bidding process ahead of Fifa’s congress in Sao Paolo on Tuesday without reviewing the fresh evidence obtained by The Sunday Times.

Miliband joined the attack on Garcia last week, saying: “Few people will have much confidence in the investigation being conducted by Fifa unless it takes full account of the evidence uncovered by The Sunday Times.”

He said the Fifa files contained “startling evidence that the decision to make Qatar the host for the World Cup in 2022 may have been corrupted”.

The new revelations from the files threaten to throw Fifa’s annual congress into disarray before the first match in the 2014 World Cup on Thursday.

Leading Exco members are under intense scrutiny over their secret dealings with Bin Hammam as they gather before the kick-off.

The documents shed new light on how a tiny desert state with virtually no football infrastructure and sweltering summer temperatures of up to 50C — but an immense treasure chest financed by its vast oil and gas reserves — walked off with the rights to host the world’s biggest sporting tournament.

Leaked emails show that Bin Hammam brokered two secret meetings with Qatari royals to discuss a major gas deal with a senior aide to Worawi Makudi, the serving Thai Exco member, in the critical final months before the ballot.

Joe Sim, a businessman and Makudi’s chief adviser at the Thai football association, met Qatar’s deputy prime minister and the chief executive of Qatargas, the state gas company, in August and September 2010 to discuss a sale of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas reserves.

Documents show that the meetings were aimed at “promoting the bilateral co-operations in soccer developments and activities between the Qatari FA and Thai FA”.

The exact nature of the deal on the table is unclear, but it came as Thailand sought to save tens of millions of pounds by renegotiating an arrangement with Qatar to purchase 1m tons of liquefied natural gas each year at a fixed price that it considered too high.

When confronted by this newspaper on Friday, Makudi denied that he had received a personal “concession” from his involvement in the gas deal but declined to elaborate.

The documents also reveal for the first time the high-level secret dealings between Qatar and Russia shortly before they swept to victory in the races for 2022 and 2018 — with Russia demolishing England’s 2018 in the process.
Emails show that Russia invited Bin Hammam to a summit to discuss “bilateral relations” in sport between their two countries on October 30, 2010, a month before the vote on the bids. Two days later, Qatar’s ruling emir also flew to Moscow for talks about joint gas production deals between the two countries.

The leaked correspondence shows that Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s Exco member and 2018 bid chairman, hailed Bin Hammam’s meeting with Putin as “a chance to further promote bilateral relations between our nations in the areas of sport”.

Platini, the former French football star who is now president of the European football federation (Uefa), confirmed last week that Bin Hammam had arranged for the Qatar bid committee to meet him in Switzerland.

Bin Hammam was not present at their meeting and did not lobby him, he said, but Platini’s revelation puts in question Qatar’s claim that its football boss had nothing to do with the World Cup bid.

Flight itineraries, emails and hotel bookings also reveal that, after the bid was won, Franz Beckenbauer, the former German star who had also been a member of Exco, travelled to Doha accompanied by Erck Rickmers, owner of the German shipping firm ER Capital Holding.

The company had hired Beckenbauer as a consultant after he stood down from his Fifa Exco seat in April 2011.
The two men were accompanied by Beckenbauer’s agent, Marcus Hoefl, and three other executives from the shipping company which owns a fleet that transports oil and gas on the high seas.

A spokesman for the firm confirmed last week that they were there to discuss Qatari investments in the maritime sector, but said no contract was signed as a result of the meetings with senior Qatari officials, which Bin Hammam did not attend. Beckenbauer declined to comment.

The documents lay bare the extent to which Bin Hammam used his connections to usher key football figures into the inner sanctum of Qatari society for meetings with the emir, the crown prince and other senior royals as part of the campaign to secure support for the bid.

The evidence that Bin Hammam was able to go straight to the top in his campaign to seal support for the 2022 bid undermines Qatar’s claim that the disgraced football official had no role in its campaign.

The files show that Bin Hammam was fixing the meetings for members of Qatar’s ruling family with football’s most powerful men at the same time as using a network of secret slush funds to buy up a groundswell of support among the bosses of national football associations.

This week’s Fifa files reveal details of the $1.7m he paid from the funds, controlled by his private company Kemco, often into the bank accounts of officials whose support he was seeking across Asia.

The glut of Asian payments came as Bin Hammam was campaigning for both the Qatar World Cup bid and for his own re-election to the post of president of the Asian Football Confederation.

The Qatar bid committee denies all wrongdoing.

 

[gkmacca]

Pact with enemy sealed Bin Hammam victory

The Asian connection — One accused the other of acting like a crime boss and tried to oust him from Fifa, yet they put insults aside and Qatar won its bid

Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert Published: 7 June 2014

Sumi Jo sang for football powerbrokers before the World Cup final in 2010 (Getty)

The soaring voice of a renowned soprano floated on the warm night air as Mohamed bin Hammam stepped onto the lantern-lit veranda of the Johannesburg Country Club. Dapper in a crisply cut suit, the silver-haired football grandee joined the illustrious guests milling around on lawns sloping gently to the lake.

It was July 5, 2010, with only six days to go before the World Cup final in the Soccer City stadium. Sumi Jo, the Korean diva, had been hired to entertain the football powerbrokers who descended on the club in Auckland Park.
Click on the hyperlinks to read the documents

Bin Hammam, head of Qatari football, was at the club as the special guest of Chung Mong-joon, a fellow member of the executive committee of Fifa, the sport’s international governing body.

Neither man was overawed by the wealth flaunted around them. Both were well acquainted with the power of money. The Qatari had made his fortune in construction and property. Chung, a South Korean, was the majority shareholder in Hyundai, the car and engineering giant.

They were also well-versed in the art of shifting alliances. Indeed, no stranger watching them chatting amicably would have realised that they had recently been sworn enemies.

In 2009 they were locked in a bitter war of words as Chung allegedly bankrolled a campaign against the Qatari.
“This man knows nothing about football,” Bin Hammam briefed at the time. Chung went further, accusing the Qatari of “suffering from mental problems”.

In 2010 there was further cause for enmity. South Korea and Qatar were bidding to become the hosts of the 2022 World Cup, pitting Chung and Bin Hammam against one another again.

Yet they were all but inseparable during the World Cup games in South Africa. Leaked documents show they travelled together between matches on Bin Hammam’s private jet, shared the astonishing luxury of Fifa’s VIP hospitality suites during important games and dined together in the neo-renaissance splendour of Johannesburg’s Michelangelo hotel.

Last week, we revealed Bin Hammam’s operation to buy support across Africa for Qatar's bid using slush-fund payments of as much as $200,000 at a time.

Our second tranche of Fifa files show that masterful diplomacy, extravagant largesse and Machiavellian strategy played a crucial part in securing Asia’s votes. Bank transfer slips and emails also reveal that Bin Hammam made payments totalling $1.7m to football bosses across Asia fromthe same secret slush funds he used in Africa.
The documents lay bare in astonishing detail how the Qatari football boss spread his private wealth between officials across the continent in return for their loyalty.

Chung was the key to Bin Hammam’s game plan. He is a respected figure in Korea, an accomplished former sportsman and a politician with presidential ambitions.

The shrewd Qatari used just the right bait to lure him. As with so many of Bin Hammam’s operations uncovered from the Fifa files, it is a complex story of skulduggery in luxurious settings — and it has a sting in its tail.
POWER in world football arises not from skill on the pitch but from becoming boss of a national football association and then president of a regional confederation to claw one’s way onto Fifa’s 22-man executive committee (Exco).
Bin Hammam held one of Asia’s four seats on Exco and was also president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), an unwieldy, 47-member organisation covering a swathe of the globe from Syria to Australia.
In early 2009, he received intelligence that Chung was supporting a plot to topple him from the AFC. A rival from Bahrain, another Gulf statelet even smaller than Qatar, was allegedly being bankrolled by the South Korean.
The Qatari hired Peter Hargitay — a lobbyist and former aide to Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president — to conduct covert surveillance on Chung and his delegation as they arrived in Kuala Lumpur for the AFC congress in May that year when member countries would vote on Asia’s four Exco seats.

Bin Hammam had been tipped off that Chung’s associates were offering development grants of up to $200,000 to Asian national football associations to back Bahrain’s campaign. He was looking for hard proof.
“Below please find a first input re S-Korean delegation with initial descriptions of the assignment, private mobile numbers, arrival dates,” Hargitay wrote to Bin Hammam on April 29.

To help win the vote, Bin Hammam also used the services of Manilal Fernando, a rotund, Sri Lankan hustler and long-standing ally, who was employed by Fifa as its South Asian regional development officer.
Fernando’s emails reveal that his electioneering methods were far from straightforward. He sent Bin Hammam one report guaranteeing the votes of 12 AFC countries, adding: “I am sure of Pakistan and Afghanistan because I sent a mobile phone and both photographed the ballot paper inside the booth and showed it to me.”

The documents show that Fernando also received a payment of $23,000 from Bin Hammam’s slush fund as reimbursement for a cash gift he said he had given to Alberto Colaco, the general secretary of the Indian football association — after winning a guarantee of his support.

A bitter war of words erupted between Chung and Bin Hammam after the Qatari made public allegations about vote-buying. It threatened to drive a wedge through the heart of Asian football. The South Korean accused the Qatari of “acting like a head of a crime organisation” as president of the AFC.
Blatter intervened, publicly reminding the warring parties of “the fundamental principles of discipline and respect for opponents”.

In short order the attempted coup fizzled out, and Bin Hammam won the vote. Few were surprised when Fifa’s ethics committee cleared all concerned of wrongdoing. That was the way of handling spats in the Fifa “family”.
With his presidency secure, Bin Hammam had a new project to attend to: Qatar’s bid for the 2022 World Cup.
Strategy documents show that as early as June 2008, the Qatari had concluded that buying up support in Asia and Africa was crucial to winning the right to host a World Cup.

The files show that in 2009 he made a string of unexplained payments from accounts held by his private company, Kemco to football bosses across Asia. Among them wasMari Martinez, president of the Philippines football association. An unknown sum was paid into his wife’s bank account, and he went on to receive $12,500 in his own.
Ganbold Buyannemekh, president of the Mongolian FA, arranged payments of more than $40,000 to his daughter. Rahif Alameh, president of the Lebanese FA, had $100,000 paid into his personal account — the first tranche of $200,000 from Bin Hammam.

The core targets of Bin Hammam’s strategy, however, were his three fellow Asians on Exco: Chung, Worawi Makudi of Thailand, and Junji Ogura of Japan.

Bin Hammam could count on the unfailing loyalty of Makudi, a long-term ally. But Chung and Ogura presented a knottier problem as both Korea and Japan were also in the race for 2022. And in Chung’s case, the rivalry was not just patriotic but personal.

Nonetheless, Bin Hammam focused on Chung as the powerful figure he had to bring onside. The Qatari was not one to allow old enmities to stand in the way.

The files reveal a marked change of tack towards Chung as summer turned to autumn in 2009. In October, the month after Qatar set up its 2022 bid committee — in which Bin Hammam had no formal role despite being boss of Qatari football — one of his closest aides arranged for Chung to travel to Kuala Lumpur on AFC business.
The aide emailed instructions to upgrade Chung’s room at the five-star Shangri-La hotel to a suite and ensure he was given a dedicated car — all expenses paid.

The two rivals breakfasted together in the hotel’s Lemon Garden restaurant on the morning of November 24. From that occasion onwards, whenever Chung visited Kuala Lumpur he was lavished with the hospitality that Bin Hammam reserved for his closest friends and allies.

Bin Hammam’s aide later instructed staff in the AFC’s logistics department: “Please ALWAYS accord Dr Chung the presidential suite. This is a standing instruction.”And then: “Following my earlier email, please also ensure that the car for Dr Chung is Hyundai (highest range model) or if that is not available, then a Mercedes 300 or 500 model (newest model). This is also a standing instruction.” The extra cost was all to be charged to Bin Hammam’s presidential account at the AFC.

The lavish hospitality was reciprocal. The two men’s assistants were soon arranging for Bin Hammam to travel to South Korea in February to be hosted by Chung at the five-star Grand Hyatt hotel with dazzling views of Seoul’s futuristic cityscape.

Chung arranged for Bin Hammam to meet the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, a former top executive at Hyundai.

“Our meeting at the presidential Blue House was arranged by none other than my good friend and comrade-in-arms Dr Chung Mong-joon,” the Qatari gushed afterwards on his blog.

“What impressed me during the meeting was the Korean president’s vision for football ... No wonder Korea’s bid for the 2022 Fifa World Cup has his full and unqualified support.”

Leaked correspondence shows that an alliance had been cemented. The documents record an intriguing deal in which Bin Hammam appears to have won Chung's loyalty by offering to help him secure his re-election as vice president of Fifa in a ballot of AFC members that was due in January 2011.

By doing so, he established a vital claim on Chung's loyalty that would pave the way for a vote-swapping pact which helped seal Qatar's victory in the 2022 World Cup.

In an other twist, Bin Hammam gifted Chung the use of his trusted electoral fixer, Manilal Fernando, who had scuppered the South Korean’s attempted coup in 2009.

The Sri Lankan set to work lobbying voters, and not just to back Chung for Fifa vice-president and Bin Hammam for AFC president — Fernando himself was seeking a seat on Fifa’s Exco.

“I have just returned from Dubai, where I had a meeting with my group,” he wrote in an email to Chung on October 20. “All these countries agreed to support Mr Bin Hammam for president, you for Fifa vice-president and myself for Fifa Exco member. Allready (sic) Sri Lanka, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Tajikistan have signed your nomination. In addition Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Usbekistan (sic) and Pakistan will send your nominations directly to the AFC to Mr Bin Hammam.

“Mr Bin Hammam is campaigning very hard for you ... You are in a strong position with Mr Hammam, myself and Warawi [Makudi] all supporting you ... Like I worked for Hammam last time I will work for him and you this time, do not worry we are winning.”

While there is no evidence that Chung knew about Fernando’s underhand tactics or had solicited the use of them, in emails to Bin Hammam the Sri Lankan sought large rewards for the countries he had locked down.
Fernando had an official role with the Goal Programme, the Fifa fund for football development in poor countries chaired by Bin Hammam. He sent Bin Hammam a list of Goal Programme payments of $400,000 each to countries in his group — Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka, asking the Qatari to use his position to obtain approval from the Goal Bureau.

Fernando was also keen that another source of football development money was generously lavished on key voters, writing to Bin Hammam in August to recommend loosening the purse strings of the AFC’s Aid 27 budget. “Until elections are over we must see that all funds due from Aid [27] to countries are paid without making it difficult for them with too many questions asked,” he suggested.

Bin Hammam continued to lavish football bosses with direct payments from the network of slush funds operated by Kemco. Asatulloev Zarifjon, president of the Tajikistan football federation, received $50,000 in June 2010. The next month, Fernando’s ally, Nidal Hadid of the Jordan FA, received $50,000 into his personal bank account from the account of Bin Hammam’s daughter, Aisha.

Another loyal ally of Fernando was handsomely rewarded for backing Bin Hammam. Ganesh Thapa, president of the Nepalese FA, was paid a total of £115,000 from two separate Kemco accounts in March and August 2010. He said last week that the money was paid as part of a business arrangement he had with Kemco.

Bangladesh received $25,000 in November 2010, while Pakistan received about $15,000 in the same period. Afghanistan was paid $40,000 from the Kemco account. The documents do not record how the money was spent.
Behind the scenes, Bin Hammam and Chung were talking. The documents show how Bin Hammam had devised a vote-swapping deal that would give Qatar the absolute majority that sealed its 2022 victory. The foundations of his understanding with Chung appear to have been laid during a string of private meetings during the World Cup in South Africa.

Chung, his wife, two daughters, niece and two assistants shared Bin Hammam’s private jet between games and were invited to enjoy VIP hospitality alongside the Qatari crown prince, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, at a match in Cape Town.

In early June, Chung called Asia’s four Exco voters together for a summit over dinner at the Michelangelo hotel. It ought to have been a tense gathering — with the most senior officials of three rival bidding countries in one room representing interests which, on the face of it, were diametrically opposed. In the event, the chronology of the Fifa files suggests the meeting led up to the formation of a crucial pact that would ultimately sweep Qatar to victory.
On July 2, Chung had emailed Bin Hammam a friendly message: “There will be the quarter final between Uruguay and Ghana in Soccer City today. I would like to go with you and watch the game together. On the way, we can talk about various topics of mutual interest.”

They had much to discuss. Minutes of a meeting of the AFC executive committee in Kuala Lumpur the next month show a deal was on the table between the Asian members to back each other’s 2022 bids in the event that their home countries failed to survive the early voting rounds.

The host of the 2022 tournament was to be decided by a secret multiple-round ballot of Fifa’s 22 Exco members in December. The bidding nation that received the fewest votes in each round would be eliminated until a single candidate emerged with an absolute majority of 12.

Bin Hammam could be confident that he had enough African votes in his pocket for Qatar to do well in the first round. But, to reach an absolute majority in the final round, he needed pledges from Exco members to support Qatar once their first choices had been eliminated.

Four members of the Asian federation were vying for 2022: Qatar, South Korea, Japan and Australia. Bin Hammam discounted Australia, as it had no Exco vote, but needed the other two.

Documents record that he told those gathered at the AFC meeting, including Ogura and Chung: “We have four Asian nations bidding and three are represented in the Fifa executive committee. I, Dr Chung, Mr Ogura will be supporting our respective nations, Qatar, Korea Republic and Japan.

“But we should promise each other that if any of our bid loses, then the support will be switched to the other bidders not only by voting but also by campaigning for each other. I think this is the one thing we owe to our continent.”
He knew that if he got their pledges, they would have no chance because he had already stacked the decks in Qatar’s favour with the African votes, as The Sunday Times revealed last week. Furthermore, by seeking their pledges, Bin Hammam was entering a grey area.

Fifa rules banned member associations and bid committees from striking “any kind of agreement with any other member association or bid committee as regards to the behaviour during the bidding process [which] may influence the bidding process”. However, private agreements between Exco members of bidding countries were impossible to police and in effect fell outside the rules.

The ploy appears to have worked — with both Chung and Ogura widely acknowledged to have pledged their loyalty to their fellow Asian bids if their own countries dropped out.

 

[gkmacca]

Presenting his bid to the Asian Football Federation the same month, Ogura said: “The AFC President has made it clear that he will support Qatar. While I will surely vote for Japan, Dr Chung must be on his own country's side. . . but no matter what, what is most important for the Asian football family is seeing the World Cup back on Asian soil.” It was a decisive moment.

When, on the bitterly cold night of December 2 in Zurich, members of Exco began to cast their secret ballots, Qatar stormed into the lead with 11 votes in the first round — just one shy of the 12 it needed for victory. Japan was level with the US on three while South Korea had four. Australia crashed out of the running with a single vote.

In the second round, Qatar dipped to 10, while Japan fell out with just two and South Korea clung on with five.
With Japan out of the race, Qatar regained a vote in the third round, while South Korea was eliminated.

In the fourth and final round, three votes swung to Qatar, propelling the tiny Gulf state to a victorious total of 14, six points ahead of the US.

THE sting in the story came in the Asian elections the next month. Fernando won his Exco seat and Bin Hamman was re-elected AFC president. But, despite all Fernando’s best lobbying efforts, the Asian federation members handed Chung’s Exco post to a Jordanian prince.

It was clearly a sore blow. But Bin Hammam had not forgotten Chung’s loyalty. The correspondence shows that soon after Chung lost his seat, Bin Hammam visited him in Seoul and made him a promise. The Qatari wrote to him after the meeting in February to thank him for the “fabulous” hospitality he had received on the visit. “I will do my best in Zurich and hope it will be successful,” he added.

The pledge is revealed in correspondence from Chung’s assistant, ES Kim, later that month. “During his visit to Korea, President Hammam mentioned ... that he would propose Dr Chung as honorary Fifa vice-president at the upcoming Fifa Exco meeting and Dr Chung is deeply appreciative of this kind gesture from the AFC president,” he wrote.

“In relation to this matter, Dr Chung would like to send a letter to some of the Fifa Exco members, who, in his opinion, would support President Hammam’s proposal. Before sending out such a request letter, Dr Chung would like to sound out the opinion of the AFC president about his plan.”

Bin Hammam agreed and, sure enough, Chung got his wish. He was named Fifa’s only honorary vice-president later that year, a position he still holds today.

And the real sting is that both Bin Hammam and Manilal Fernando have since been banned for life from world football. In the Qatari’s case, this was for a “conflict of interest”; in the Sri Lankan’s , for corruption including conflict of interest, bribery, and accepting gifts.

Chung and Ogura did not respond to requests for comment last week.

 

[gkmacca]

Platini and Beckenbauer were key targets of Cup campaign

Courting the giants

Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert Published: 7 June 2014

Michel Platini had a seat on Fifa’s executive committee (PETER TARRY)

AMONG Mohamed bin Hammam’s prominent targets in his campaign to secure the World Cup for Qatar were two of Europe’s most famous football stars, Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer.

Platini — the European football president and a member of Fifa’s executive committee (Exco) who has announced that he voted for Qatar — confirmed last night that Bin Hammam had played a key role by arranging for him to meet the Qatar bid committee.

The Fifa files reveal that Bin Hammam personally arranged for the leaders of the committee to fly to Nyon in Switzerland, where the European football federation (Uefa) is based, to give Platini a private presentation in October 2010, two months before Exco voted to give Qatar the 2022 World Cup.

Platini told The Sunday Times last night that Bin Hammam was not present in person and did not lobby him personally over the bid. Nonethless, the arrangement casts more doubt on Qatar’s insistence that Bin Hammam had no connection with the bid committee.

Documents seen by The Sunday Times also reveal that the night before the meeting, Platini had dined privately at Geneva’s Tsé-Fung Chinese restaurant with Qatar’s crown prince, Sheikh Tamim bin Khalifa Al Thani. One of his brothers was in charge of Qatar’s bid committee.

The files show that Beckenbauer, who was also an Exco member, travelled to Doha as Bin Hammam’s guest with a lobbyist called Fedor Radmann in October 2009. Bin Hammam put the two men up in lavish style in the five-star Sheraton hotel and took them to meet the emir. In a cryptic email to Radmann before the trip, an aide to the Qatari football boss wrote: “Mr Bin Hammam asked me to send you this message that option 3 is confirmed for your visit to Doha. He said the confirmation received from Amir office is option 3.”

Franz Beckenbauer travelled to Doha as Mohamed bin Hammam’s guest (Getty)

Emails show that Radmann and Bin Hammam kept in touch, and Beckenbauer would later defend the decision to hand Qatar the World Cup, calling on critics to give Doha “a fair chance”.

Beckenbauer stepped down from Exco in March 2011 and began working as a consultant for a German shipping firm, ER Capital Holding, which owns companies that transport oil and gas.

He already had a personal link to it. His wife, Heidi, had named one of its new supertankers ER Bayern — after his old club — at a shipyard ceremony in South Korea in August 2010. Erick Rickmers, its chief executive, had followed up with a donation of $250,000 to the footballer’s charitable foundation.

Documents show that Beckenbauer arranged a private meeting with Bin Hammam in London in May 2011. A month later the Qatari hosted Beckenbauer with his sports agent, Marcus Hoefl, and four ER bosses — including Rickmers — at the Four Seasons hotel in Doha.

A spokesman for ER Capital Holding said last week that the trip to Doha was to discuss “a possible co-operation ... with Qatari investment funds and investment opportunities in the maritime sector”.

He added that “no contract resulted with any of the interested parties” and that “Mohamed Bin Hammam was not present at these talks”.

Beckenbauer told a press conference last week: “I have never been acting for Qatar nor for Mohamed bin Hammam.”

He said he had voted for the candidate that appeared most capable.

 

[Oncy]

Cheers Mac. Rotten to the fucking core.

 

[SummerOnions]

Blatter's got Qatar in his ears

 

[Hansern]

I saw one of FIFAs biggest sponsors , Sony, demanded a full investigation of the Qatar 2022 evidence. Maybe that will be the start of something.

 

[Woland]

They could end corruption at Fifa and the IOC by admitting the event goes to the highest bidder. Would anyone give a shit? It's not like these organisations are democratic. It's not like they owe anyone anything. Call the bribes bids and everything works.

 

[juniormember]

They could end corruption at Fifa and the IOC by admitting the event goes to the highest bidder. Would anyone give a shit? It's not like these organisations are democratic. It's not like they owe anyone anything. Call the bribes bids and everything works.

Then we'd likely have every olympic and football event in the desert.

 

[Woland]

Well no, coz they could still rotate the continents and stuff.

 

[juniormember]

Well no, coz they could still rotate the continents and stuff.

Then Asia would only ever have the UAE and Qatar doing it, and the rest of the continents would only ever have the richest countries hosting the event. And the USA would get a free pass every time it's North America's turn.
A bidding process wouldn't work, for me anyway.

 

[Red Bird]

Bloody hell, that makes depressing reading even if I ought not to be surprised at all.

 

[FoxForceFive]

This is an EXTREMELY long, (relative to Internet articles, not war & peace) but worthwhile read.

It's sickening how corrupt football is.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinge...ho-built-and-bilk?curator=MediaREDEF&s=mobile

 

[RedZeppelin III]

you sort of wish there was one high profile footballer who might raise this issue during the world cup , a t-shirt or interview questioning why the biggest game on earth is run this way . But obviously they won't as they're all as thick as shite .

As mentioned above , the only way FIFA will do anything about this is if sponsors start to question their relationship with an organisation like this . Sony are but i suspect few others will .

So i am with Woland , just announce that this is how bids are run and allow the best bribe win.

 

[Portly]

FIFA is unique in that it is an organisation that isn't answerable to any higher power. There is no regulator, and no government is willing or able to take responsibility for it. That's made the organisation greedy and arrogant. A FIFA bureaucrat said last week that it would take several years to investigate the accusations relating to the 2022 World Cup bid.

We've all known for years that FIFA is hopelessly corrupt. Whenever the concensus has been that it's time Sepp Blatter was replaced, there has always been a vote that reveals astonishing unanimity among all those delegates that Sepp must stay.

Let's hope that the sponsors are able to achieve some reform of FIFA by their threat to walk away.

 

[Spaghetti Legs]

you sort of wish there was one high profile footballer who might raise this issue during the world cup , a t-shirt or interview questioning why the biggest game on earth is run this way . But obviously they won't as they're all as thick as shite .

As mentioned above , the only way FIFA will do anything about this is if sponsors start to question their relationship with an organisation like this . Sony are but i suspect few others will .

So i am with Woland , just announce that this is how bids are run and allow the best bribe win.

Adidas are on their case as now it seems, its starting to gain momentum.

Would love to see Qatar stripped of it and love even more to see all those corrupt bastards exposed and for FIFA to implode, wishful thinking!

Would be good to see the Aussies get 2022, they know how to put on a good show.

 

[#roadred]

Adidas are on their case as now it seems, its starting to gain momentum.

Would love to see Qatar stripped of it and love even more to see all those corrupt bastards exposed and for FIFA to implode, wishful thinking!

Would be good to see the Aussies get 2022, they know how to put on a good show.

I'd love that to. My kids were just a bit young for the Brazil trip, the wife say absolutely no way to Russia and I'm 100% against Qatar, at this rate I'll never see another WC. It's a long way off but Australia would be a definite!!!

 

[StevieM]

I turn 50 a few weeks before the 2022 World Cup.

I think hosting it in Australia is a reasonable birthday present - particularly as I'd be confident of securing a ticket to the final.

 

[LeTallecWiz]

 

[Silver Sean]

My only surprise is that people are surprised.

 

[Le Chacal]

FIFA are corrupted to the bone but, with Qatar's bid, big countries like France and Germany supported it. Sarkozy and Merkel pushed for the bid when at same time they were promised billions in investments from Quatar in their respective countries. Even Blatter admitted it the other day on swiss TV. There was a big consensus at the very top of the States that Quatar was the "best" bid

 

[Portly]

Some of the media coverage I have heard, seems to be treating Sepp Blatter as the honest John who has to sort out the corrupt people! 😀

 

[gkmacca]

Very good. John Oliver is a real LFC fan, too, so doubly good.

 

[peterhague]

FIFA is unique in that it is an organisation that isn't answerable to any higher power. There is no regulator, and no government is willing or able to take responsibility for it. That's made the organisation greedy and arrogant. A FIFA bureaucrat said last week that it would take several years to investigate the accusations relating to the 2022 World Cup bid.

We've all known for years that FIFA is hopelessly corrupt. Whenever the concensus has been that it's time Sepp Blatter was replaced, there has always been a vote that reveals astonishing unanimity among all those delegates that Sepp must stay.

Let's hope that the sponsors are able to achieve some reform of FIFA by their threat to walk away.

It's a so-called 'natural monopoly', that's the problem. They can do whatever the hell they like because they know their customers can't go anywhere else, at least not without a HUGE amount of effort.

Wherever you have a dearth of competition, corruption and producer-capture like this happens.

And yet, somehow, people still have a poor impression of markets in general.

 

[refugee]

Qatar 2022: Sepp Blatter says corruption claims are racist
Fifa president Sepp Blatter claims allegations surrounding the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid are motivated by racism.
Qatar was chosen as host in December 2010 but corruption claimshave prompted Fifa to begin an inquiry.
"There is a sort of storm against Fifa relating to the Qatar World Cup," Blatter said. "Sadly there's a great deal of discrimination and racism."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27762435
Fifa will rule on the validity of the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in September or October.
At that point, the president of football's world governing body said, the "matter will be closed".
Speaking to African football officials in Sao Paulo, Blatter confirmed that the latest allegations would be discussed at the Fifa Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.
He said Fifa needed to combat "anything that smacks of discrimination and racism".
"It really makes me sad," he added.
At its general assembly in Sao Paulo, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) condemned what it termed "the repeated, deliberately hateful, defamatory and degrading attacks by some media, notably British, on the image and the integrity of the Confederation of African Football, its president, its members, its member associations and the entire African continent."
Caf added that it would urge the executive committee "to file a law suit, if necessary, so that the authors of this smearing and defamatory campaign against African football leaders are brought to book".
Qatar overcame competition from Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States to be named as 2022 hosts.
But the bidding process has been hit by a series of corruption claims.
American lawyer Michael Garcia is currently involved in an independent investigation into the bidding process and is due to deliver his report to Fifa in mid-July.
Blatter, 78, told delegates from the Asian Football Conference that Garcia would also speak at Fifa's congress to update delegates on his inquiry.
Garcia is investigating everyone connected with the bidding process for both the 2018 World Cup, to be staged in Russia, and the 2022 event.
Qatar's World Cup organising committee continues to reject claims of wrongdoing and says it is confident the vote was won fairly.

 

[Spaghetti Legs]

Ah, that old cretinous trick from Blatter, trying to divert from the actual issue/s by using the old racist line.

Look at the quote from Blatter...

He said Fifa needed to combat "anything that smacks of discrimination and racism".
"It really makes me sad," he added.

Can you possibly be a bigger hypocrite bullshitter? the audacity of the man to come out with stuff like that, for a start if thats really the way he and FIFA think then why have Russia got the next World Cup?

 

[Mors]

Blatter was in on it then. Maybe he feels the net is closing on him to pull this one. Might even work.

 

[Hansern]

@WorldCupPosts: BREAKING: Senior UEFA officials call on Sepp Blatter to end his FIFA presidency.

 

[cloggypop]

Dutch football association chairman says Fifa's Blatter should go

Tuesday 10 June 2014
Dutch football association chairman Michael van Praag says Fifa boss Sepp Blatter should not stand for a new term.
In an interview with the Volkskrant, Van Praag said Blatter is too much associated with the bad image of the world football association and that his time is over.
The 79-year-old Blatter is considering standing again in next year's election, having said in 2011 this would be his final term as Fifa president.
Controversies
Fifa has been embroiled in several controversies lately, most recently charges of corruption in the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
'Fifa's image has suffered in recent years,' Van Praag told the Volkskrant. 'Few people take it seriously and the buck stops with Blatter.'
The European football associations are meeting during the Fifa congress in São Paulo on Tuesday and Van Praag expects them to take a joint decision on Blatter.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/06/dutch_fa_chairman_says_fifas_b.php

 

[cloggypop]

FA chairman Greg Dyke tells Fifa president Sepp Blatter he is damaging the image of football as vice-chairman David Gill calls on Blatter not to stand for re-election

Incident occurred at the executive meeting as Blatter tells delegates he wants to stand for a fifth term in office
IAN HERBERT

Tuesday 10 June 2014


The FA chairman Greg Dyke today told Fifa executive president Sepp Blatter to his face that he is damaging the image of football and vice chairman David Gill declared he must go.
Dyke's comments came during a meeting of all the national associations of Uefa, during which Dutch FA chief Michael van Praag called on the 78-year-old not to stand for a fifth term in office.
Dyke and Van Praag told Blatter that Fifa had a poor image and "something must be done" to refresh Fifa.
Blatter's claim that racism lay behind accusations that Fifa executives took bribes to give the 2022 World Cup to Qatar have staggered Uefa. Van Praag said he was "not happy" about that claim and said it was not true. Gill said the racism claim was "totally inaccurate and totally incorrect." He said Blatter should go.

Dyke's extraordinary challenge to Blatter came after he told Uefa that he was considering standing for another term in office next year, contrary to his previous promise to leave. "I changed my mind," Blatter told the committee. He received no support from any member of Uefa's powerful executive committee today and did not receive the customary standing ovation after his speech, in which Blatter said he had to take responsibility for all the bad publicity surrounding football's governing body.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...tter-not-to-stand-for-reelection-9523709.html