Anti corruption watchdog urges halt to World Cup race

Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International on Monday called on FIFA to postpone the race to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, after renewed media allegations of corruption were made.

The call by the private campaign group came just days before the executive committee of world football’s governing body was due to designate the two host nations under the eyes of a brace of world leaders and stars.

“The decision to award football’s World Cup in 2018 and 2022, scheduled for December 2, 2010, must be postponed until full light is shed on the allegations published in the press,” Transparency International Switzerland said in a statement.

“These have brought such discredit to the decision-making processes at FIFA that a decision in the current circumstances would only fuel the controversy,” it added.

The Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported that Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil, African football chief Issa Hayatou and his South American counterpart Nicolas Leoz were tied to a secret list of payments from bankrupt FIFA marketing partner ISMM/ISL over a decade ago.

The firm collapsed in 2001 in a controversy over alleged kickbacks for TV rights contracts, prompting a FIFA criminal complaint that was later dropped.

A Swiss court handed down fines on three ISMM/ISL executives in 2008 for embezzlement or accounting offences.

Leoz was already listed as a recipient of suspect payments from the marketing firm, alongside several companies based in offshore havens, in evidence presented by the prosecutor in the Swiss canton of Zug in 2005.

Transparency said that even if those allegations were currently not proven, they needed to be investigated by an independent fact-finding body rather than FIFA’s ethics committee.

The bidding race suffered a direct blow last month when an undercover British newspaper report prompted the ethics body to suspend two other members of the 24-strong executive committee, Oceania football chief Reynald Temarii and Nigeria’s Amos Adamu for alleged misdealings in bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

There were also signs that the secret ballot on Thursday could slip into confusion as the Oceanian Football Confederation (OFC) sought the right to vote by replacing Temarii.

Although FIFA had suggested it would run the ballot with 22 of the 24 committee members, England 2018 bid chief executive Andy Anson was anticipating there would be 23.

“I think our colleagues in the OFC are confident they’ll be voting this week,” Anson told journalists.

Temarii’s lawyer, Geraldine Lesieur, told AFP that FIFA wanted him to give up any appeal against his one year suspension for misconduct, after being cleared of bribery, if it allows his substitution on the executive committee.

However, Temarii has still not received the full ruling, a key legal step that would allow him to decide, she explained.

“Mr Temarii will decide after he has been informed of the motivated ruling,” Lesieur said. “We are in an impasse.”

FIFA chief Sepp Blatter has promised that a “new FIFA” would choose the hosts, while acknowledging the need to examine more change afterwards to adapt to the growing economic stakes in football.

England, Russia and joint bids by Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium are in the running to host the 2018 World Cup while Australia, the United States, Japan, Qatar and South Korea are bidding for 2022.

Bidding delegations led by England, which fears that British media reports have upset FIFA decision-makers, started arriving in Zurich on Monday for a final lobbying drive in the city’s plush five star hotels.

British Prime minister David Cameron, Prince William, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Qatari crown princes and former US president Bill Clinton were amongst those expected to woo FIFA’s executive committee on Wednesday and Thursday.