‘FIFA is a healthy, clean and transparent organisation with nothing to hide. There is huge public interest in FIFA, therefore we have to be as transparent as possible. We will try to communicate in a more open way so the world can believe us and be proud of their federation.’

‘I do not believe a Jew can ever be a referee at that level (Argentine Premier League) because it’s hard work and, you know, Jews don’t like hard work.’

Adam C. Silverstein, a lawyer for MasterCard in their successful action against FIFA, New York, December 1, 2006

‘I am deputy chairman of the finance committee of FIFA. I oversee a budget of US$2 billion and I have never seen one iota of corruption.’

‘If you do not stop now, then we call the security and we put you out.’

‘A one million franc bribe … is it not correct that Mr Blatter asked that it be moved to the FIFA official who was named on the payment slip?’

‘Neither FIFA nor its President have anything to hide, nor do they wish to.’

(Read all their confidential documents here!)

Talk to me, I’m Michael, you can trust

me with your FIFA secrets

By Andrew Jennings

Saturday 13 December 2014:

ONE OF FIFA’s top corruption investigators is claiming that the inspection report on countries bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022 can no longer be trusted, calling into question the votes that gave the tournament to Russia and Qatar.

How come? A Zurich lawyer, hand-picked by Sepp Blatter, has accused former Chilean football president Harold Mayne-Nicholls, who chaired the inspection team, of breaches of FIFA’s Ethics Code.

Former Zurich prosecutor Cornel Borbély alleges that Mayne-Nicholls accepted gifts, is disloyal to FIFA, failed to co-operate with the Ethics committee investigation and does not have “an ethical attitude.”

In an explosive confidential letter last month Borbély wrote that your ‘behaviour seems to be a cause enough to doubt the integrity of the inspection process and your evaluations.’

A respected man

Mayne-Nicholls is planning to run against Blatter next year for the FIFA presidency and is one of the most respected figures in the world game. He co-ordinated the FIFA inspection teams for the 2010 World Cup – that led to it going to South Africa – and chaired the group for 2018 and 2022.

The attack by lawyer Borbély could lead to Mayne-Nicholls’ suspension from football and exclusion from next year’s FIFA presidential election, denying national associations an alternative to Blatter.

Former FIFA official Guido Tognoni said, ‘Harold is one of the most honest football officials you could ever meet. The action against him is totally disproportional considering all that happened around the 2018/2022 bids.’

In January this year Mayne-Nicholls accepted an invitation to discuss the World Cup bidding process in New York with lawyer Michael Garcia who leads FIFA’s investigation into allegations of corruption in the bids by Russia and Qatar. Mayne-Nicholls paid the $3,000 cost of his flight and hotel from his home in Santiago, Chile.

Revealed disturbing activities

Sitting with Garcia in his Lexington Avenue, New York, law office was Tim Flynn, an ex-FBI man, now with the Louis Freeh private detective agency. Mr Flynn has previously worked for FIFA on security at youth tournaments and Mr Freeh is a former head of the FBI. Michael Garcia was appointed by the Bush administration as chief federal law enforcement officer for the Southern District of New York. He retired in 2008 and went into private law practice.

One of my sources, close to FIFA’s investigations, told me that while Garcia could not engage in clandestine activities, like tracing bank accounts, Freeh’s company had that capability.

The transcript shows that no allegations of any kind were made against him during a recorded interview lasting two hours. On the contrary Mayne-Nicholls revealed disturbing activities by some members of FIFA’s 22-man executive committee when they voted to give the next two World Cup tournaments to Russia and Qatar.

He told Garcia, ‘The mistake was putting two bids together, once you did that it was a chaotic situation immediately.’ It led to illicit vote trading. ‘I was there for the Congress and . . . you could feel the decision was taken much earlier than this. I’m sure that 20 of those 22 votes were decided.’ [in advance]

“They cannot do the World Cup there”

‘I talked with the members before, and I heard that Qatar was really strong and Russia was really strong, and I was really surprised.’

Michael Garcia: ‘You were?’

Harold Mayne-Nicholls: ‘I knew that England was not in a good position, because a lot of members, they don’t like England. But I thought that Spain and Portugal was really strong, and I thought that the U.S. would go, will win it easily. That was my feelings. England was really a very professional presentation, very, and Australia was very professional too and a very nice country.’

He added, ‘Members of more than (more) than one team have told me that, while they felt the evaluations were terrific and looked at the right things, there was a sense even among the evaluation team that what you did wasn’t going to make a difference.’

Mayne-Nicholls did not skirt around the massive problems he found in Qatar. ‘No, no. They could, they cannot, they cannot do the World Cup there, but that’s what, that’s my feeling. It is possible, but it is high risk.’

“It was terrible”

He also told Garcia of his experience in the heat on the way to a stadium that had cooling equipment. This was in September 2010, after the boiling summer.

‘They drop us one block away from the [stadium] and we have to walk this 38, 39 Celsius degree, and it was terrible. It was really tough, me with a tie, jacket. And we get in the stadium and inside [it] was 22, 23 degrees and we immediately felt better.’

There were more problems in Qatar. 'The other big risk is transportation. You will be moving 140,000 people at the same time, the same day. I don't see that [will be] very easy. I'm not sure if the members of the ExCo took [this] into consideration. I remember hearing one of them, Mr. Grondona, saying, "I will not be alive for that time so it's not my problem." In Spanish he said, "Yo no voy a estar vivo."'

Grondona died in July this year, aged 82. His son Humberto is being investigated by Rio police for ticket rackets in Brazil this summer.

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