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FBI Fifa bugging reports should prompt World Cup investigation, says MP FBI Fifa bugging reports should prompt World Cup investigation, says MP
(about 3 hours later)
Claims that the FBI persuaded a Fifa executive to bug his meetings during the London 2012 Olympics strengthens the case for the Serious Fraud Office to investigate World Cup bidding, according to an MP who is campaigning for Fifa reform. Claims that a disgraced former Fifa executive turned FBI informant used a secret bugging device to record meetings with colleagues at the London 2012 Olympics have led to calls for the Serious Fraud Office to investigate world football’s governing body.
The Conservative MP Damian Collins says reports that Chuck Blazer agreed to take a tiny, secret microphone into meetings with other football officials should be enough for the SFO to now investigate. The allegations, part of an in depth investigation into the American former Fifa executive committee member Chuck Blazer by the New York Daily News, prompted the Conservative MP Damian Collins to renew his call for the SFO to investigate longstanding bribery and money-laundering allegations surrounding Fifa.
The New York Daily News has reported that Blazer, the American former Fifa executive committee member, agreed to take a bug hidden inside a key ring into meetings, some of which took place in London. He was under investigation by the FBI and tax authorities for millions in unpaid taxes, the newspaper said. The newspaper claimed that faced with a bill for unpaid income tax on millions of dollars of hidden earnings stretching back over a decade, Blazer agreed to co-operate with an ongoing investigation by the FBI and the IRS.
Those he invited to the meetings included the Russia 2018 organising committee chief, Alexei Sorokin, and Frank Lowy, the head of the Australian 2022 bid, but it is not known whether they did actually meet Blazer. Blazer agreed to record meetings on a bug hidden inside a key fob while staying at a Mayfair hotel during the London Olympics. Most of football’s most senior figures were in London during the Games for meetings on the fringes of the sporting event.
The SFO said last week it does not have the jurisdiction to investigate World Cup bidding but Collins believes the latest reports on the FBI should make it reconsider. Those Blazer invited to the meetings included the Russia 2018 organising committee chief Alexei Sorokin and Frank Lowy, the head of the Australian 2022 bid. However, it is not clear whether they actually agreed to meet with Blazer.
Collins said: “It’s like something out of a novel, real cloak-and-dagger stuff, and it’s tragic for football the FBI are now apparently resorting to such tactics to get to the truth. If the FBI investigation includes meetings that Chuck Blazer held in London during the Olympics, then that should come under the jurisdiction of the SFO. Peter Hargitay, a longtime adviser to Fifa president Sepp Blatter, was also reported to be on the list of those whose meetings with Blazer were bugged. He confirmed that he did meet briefly with Blazer during the London Games.
“The SFO can also investigate organisations with commercial interests in the UK and that would definitely include Fifa.” “Anybody who was working with Blatter was obviously of interest. Although I don’t see what the hell I could contribute,” he told the Guardian. “All these things refer to a time when I was not involved in football.”
The US attorney Michael Garcia has finished his investigation into bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, won by Russia and Qatar respectively. England also bid for the 2018 tournament but were eliminated in the first round of voting. According to the reports, Blazer also agreed to allow the FBI to monitor his communications with 44 high ranking football officials, including the longstanding Fifa president Blatter.
Garcia’s report is now being studied by the head of Fifa’s ethics adjudicatory chamber, the German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, but he has said he will not publish it in full. Collins wants the SFO to demand Fifa send it a copy of the Garcia report. Collins, a longstanding campaigner for Fifa reform, said the fact that the meetings took place on British soil was enough for the SFO to launch its own investigation and demand evidence from the scandal-plagued Zurich-based governing body.
The MP for Folkestone and Hythe said: “The SFO would have reasonable grounds to request to see the Garcia report. What Fifa has to realise is if it is sitting on evidence of bribery and corruption it could be in breach of international law.” “Their concern is about whether they had jurisdiction. This is proof they do have jurisdiction. There could easily be grounds for them to get involved. If they feel they have the jurisdiction they will,” he told the Guardian.
In a letter to Collins last week, the SFO’s director, David Green, said it would keep the case under review but questioned whether it had jurisdiction to act. Green wrote: “The allegations that have occurred so far are against non-UK nationals and the alleged conduct took place outside of the UK. Fifa is as you know based in Switzerland. I can however assure you that the SFO will continue to keep the jurisdictional position under review.” “A request may have to be made to the Swiss authorities. But it would be astonishing if Fifa failed to respond to the SFO. It would be quite a serious breach of trust to make the SFO go to the Swiss courts.”
The SFO said it had not yet received any information that showed the UK criminal courts would accept jurisdiction. But a spokesman added: “We continue to monitor the situation and to keep the jurisdictional position under review.”
Blazer, who documented his indulgent lifestyle and boasted of his meetings with world leaders on his own personal blog, served on Fifa’s executive committee for 17 years from 1996. As the general secretary of Concacaf, he was the right-hand man to its controversial president Jack Warner.
In 2011, he helped provide evidence that implicated Warner and the prospective Fifa presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam in bribing members of the Carribean Football Union. The Qatari Asian Football Confederation president Bin Hammam was forced to withdraw his challenge to Blatter and was later banned from football for life.
In April 2013, a Concacaf internal audit found that Blazer had received $15m in hidden commissions since 1998 and had operated without a contract for that entire period. He resigned from Fifa’s executive committee shortly afterwards. The controversial Warner had already resigned from his all football positions a year earlier.
Among the documents published by the Daily News is a Social Security benefits summary that shows Blazer failed to declare income between at least 1992 and 1998, a period during which he received at least $21.6m in compensation from Concacaf.
The 2013 internal Concacaf audit revealed he had also claimed millions more in commissions on deals and expense and detailed a $29m credit card bill amassed by Blazer and his senior colleagues over seven years.
The newspaper report claims that Concacaf paid $18,000 a month for his Trump Towers apartment, in the same building as its offices, and a further $6,000 per month for an adjoining flat that was mostly used by his cats.
Blazer, now seriously ill with cancer, refused to comment on the claims when visited by the Daily News. Since 2011, when it first emerged that the FBI was investigating claims of tax avoidance and money laundering related to Fifa executives over the past two decades, the law enforcement agency has refused to comment.
The latest wave of claims come as the head of the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa’s ethics committee considers a report by former New York southern district attorney Michael Garcia into allegations of corruption during the 2018 and 2022 bidding race.
Hans-Joachim Eckert, a German judge, has promised to make a detailed statement by the middle of this month on the contents of the 350-page report but will not publish it in full. Those who have seen parts of the report claim that it contains enough evidence to implicate several individuals in wrongdoing but is unlikely to result in the hosts of either tournament being stripped of the World Cup.
Garcia spent 18 months investigating the bidding process and interviewed more than 75 witnesses. However, he could not compel any of those no longer involved in football – including Blazer, Warner, Bin Hammam and former Brazilian football official Ricardo Teixeira – to give evidence.
Last month, he warned Fifa that it needed to publish as much of the report as it could if it wanted to convince the public its culture had changed.
The 2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar following a chaotic and controversial bidding race marked by allegations of collusion and corruption.
“What is astonishing is that Sepp Blatter seems to regard these things as a private matter for Fifa,” said Collins. “If we’re dealing with matters of bribery and corruption, it is a matter for the criminal courts.”