Boris kicks FIFA chiefs out of The Dorchester: London Mayor takes revenge for THAT vote by scuppering £1,000-a-night Olympic junket

Boris Johnson has taken revenge on Sepp Blatter and the other FIFA delegates who destroyed England’s bid to host the World Cup by kicking them out of London’s Dorchester hotel for the 2012 Olympic Games.



FIFA president Mr Blatter and his team had been invited to stay in exclusive £1,000-a-night suites at the five-star hotel for more than a week during the Olympics.



The gesture was part of the charm offensive designed to woo FIFA – football’s world governing body – in the run-up to Thursday’s 2018 World Cup vote.

Revenge: Boris Johnson, pictured in Zurich with England manager Fabio Capello, has pulled the plug on a FIFA Olympic visit in revenge for the loss of the World Cup vote

But London Mayor Mr Johnson, the official host of the Olympics, has withdrawn the offer to demonstrate his fury at the way FIFA threw out England’s bid.



Well-placed sources said that when Mr Johnson met Mr Blatter in October, the FIFA boss made no secret of his ability to influence England’s fate.



He told the Mayor: ‘What is the point of having power if you don’t wield it?’



In his final address to FIFA delegates before Thursday’s vote, he is said to have referred to the ‘evils’ of the English media, which have exposed FIFA corruption.



Mr Blatter also reportedly indicated during his talks with Mr Johnson that he had been impressed by the number of glamorous women paraded in front of him during his visits to some of the rival bidding nations.



He said: ‘I have seen a lot of beautiful girls in other countries.’



The English bid relied less on glitz and glamour and focused mainly on the country’s modern stadiums and high-quality transport links compared with rival countries.



Mr Johnson, who attended last week’s FIFA summit in Zurich and co-ordinated London’s efforts as part of the bid, described the decision to award the World Cup to Russia as a ‘big blow and tremendously disappointing’.



He added: ‘We put together a cracking bid, our technical specification was top-notch and our stadiums would have been packed to the rafters. Londoners love football.’

Upset: FIFA boss Sepp Blatter was invited to stay in London's Dorchester Hotel but the offer has been withdrawn

Both Mr Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron, who also helped to lobby FIFA delegates, took sideswipes at Russia’s record on crime and racism in the run-up to the vote.



In his meeting with Mr Blatter, the Mayor said mischievously: ‘Only six bicycles have been stolen since my bikes-for-hire scheme started in London.



'Light-fingered Frenchmen nicked hundreds when they did the same in Paris. Imagine how many would go missing in Moscow.’



And in an interview for the BBC’s Football Focus programme a week ago, Mr Cameron appeared to highlight Russian football’s notorious record for racial abuse by fans.



He said Britain’s multicultural society was ‘one of our selling points’, adding: ‘We can say you don’t have to worry about problems of racism in football.’

When black player Peter Odemwingie joined West Bromwich Albion from Russian side Lokomotiv Moscow in the summer, fans there held up a banner depicting a banana and bearing the words ‘Thanks West Brom’.



Mr Johnson’s decision to ban Mr Blatter and his colleagues from The Dorchester came after he discussed the matter with former Olympic gold-medal winner Lord Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games.



The body is in charge of booking hotels for VIPs at the Olympics at no cost to the guests.

Mr Blatter and the FIFA delegates are used to staying in the world’s top hotels as they jet round the world, feted by governments desperate to host the World Cup.

Exclusive: The Dorchester Hotel in London's Park Lane

They regard The Dorchester as their London home and stayed there during the summer.



Now they will have to settle for more modest accommodation. One official who witnessed the Zurich vote said: ‘As far as we are concerned they can stay in a B&B in the Old Kent Road and pay for it themselves to boot.’



The Dorchester’s website proclaims its ‘rooms of exceptional grace and comfort . . . Bathrooms are welcoming and spacious, offering an exceptional combination of style and function, and are said to have the deepest baths in London.



'They are made in Italian marble and designed in the classic Art Deco style’.



FIFA delegates, including Trinidad and Tobago’s controversial Jack Warner, who promised Prince William he would vote for England but backed Russia instead, could have stayed in the magnificent Dorchester Suites, which are nearly twice the size of the average three-bedroom house.



The hotel boasts: ‘The large sitting room has distinct areas for comfortable seating and elegant dining.



'The suites all feature marble en suite bathrooms that are notably luxurious and spacious with natural daylight. Four-poster beds are also a highlight.’



Mr Blatter is known to be an admirer of The Dorchester’s lavish facilities. The hotel offers afternoon tea at The ¬Promenade and ‘the best of home-grown British food’ in The Grill.



He could have been ‘pampered’ in the new Dorchester Spa, which ‘exudes Thirties Art Deco glamour, including a chandelier of South Pacific pearls’.



The FIFA president may struggle to match that in the Old Kent Road, known the world over for its Monopoly game price tag of £60.





Blunkett asks: Should the FA give Triesman his job back?



By Ian Gallagher



The shady backroom deals surrounding the voting process appear to lend credence to controversial allegations repeated by Lord Triesman earlier this year.



He said there was ‘some evidence’ that Spain would withdraw its bid to stage the World Cup in 2018 if Russia helped it bribe referees at last summer’s tournament.



The Labour peer’s remarks, which appeared in The Mail on Sunday, led to his resignation as head of both England’s World Cup bid and the FA. He said last week, however, that he was only repeating what a Spanish journalist had told him.

Support: Former Home Secretary David Blunkett has spoken for Lord Triesman

Although Spain did not withdraw from the 2018 process, Russia’s success has led many to suspect that Lord Triesman’s concerns were well-founded.



In a letter yesterday to The Times, former Home Secretary David Blunkett said: ‘Is it time for the FA to reinstate Lord Triesman?’



His question has been repeated countless times in the past few days by football fans who posted comments online.



Lord Triesman believes that the biggest factor in England’s failure was a change in direction by FIFA.



In a television interview he said: ‘I think what we can read from this is something quite different, and that is that FIFA has decided to have different criteria. It’s not the criteria they proclaimed for selection but a different criteria.’



He refused to say if he felt deals had been cut but called for greater transparency.



Referring to the decision to give the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, he added: ‘If you do two World Cups together, it must be very tempting for people to see if they can trade blocks of votes because if you can, you get to win.’



I'LL GIVE PUTIN A CARIBBEAN HOLIDAY, SAYS THE TWO-FACED TURNCOAT

By Nick Harris and Sharon Churcher Wealth: Jack Warner at the 2018 World Cup announcement on Thursday The football powerbroker who reneged on a promise to support England’s 2018 World Cup bid now wants to celebrate Russia’s victory by paying for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to have a

Caribbean holiday.

Amid growing controversy over the decision, Jack Warner, a vice-president of FIFA, twisted the knife further by saying he was ‘not too surprised’ Russia had won.

Yet only hours before the crucial vote in Zurich, he is said to have put his arm around Prince William and told him: ‘You can rely on me.’

England’s £15 million bid was spearheaded by the Prince, David Cameron and David Beckham, but secured just two of the 22 votes by FIFA committee members.

Mr Warner, a wealthy Caribbean politician and businessman who has been accused of lining his pockets from World Cup ticket sales, said that he invited Putin to a ‘victory’ celebration in his native Trinidad before FIFA delegates even met to vote.

He said in a statement last night: ‘I’m not too surprised Russia won. I told Mr Putin that if Russia won, he had to come to Trinidad and Tobago for at least one day, so we should see him here shortly.’

Mr Warner is one of seven FIFA ‘fat cats’ who pledged to support England’s bid, only to go back on their word.

Last night his remarks cast a spotlight on the lifestyle he and his family are renowned for in Trinidad.

Though he reportedly earns a relatively modest salary as the island’s Minister of Works and Transport, he lives in a spacious villa with a swimming pool.

A Trinidad political insider said: ‘Jack likes his comforts. He is driven around in limos, and wines and dines in the best hotels thanks to his position in football.

'Both his sons also own big, flash villas here and they have a penchant for sports cars. Jack has totally denied corruption allegations but there is no question that his influence in FIFA makes him a “go-to” guy when it comes to getting him and his family business opportunities.’

Mr Warner, his wife Maureen and sons Daryan and Daryll owned a travel agency, Simpaul, that was accused in 2006 of benefiting from sales of ticket packages at mark-ups for that year’s World Cup in Germany.

According to a secret FIFA report obtained by The Mail on Sunday, the organisation’s ethics committee unanimously warned that Mr Warner had breached conflict of interest codes.

He subsequently disposed of his Simpaul shares but Daryan continued as the firm’s managing director and during the World Cup passed hundreds of more tickets to touts.

Auditors Ernst & Young alleged that the family stood to make a £490,000 profit from the transactions. Last night Warner refused to explain why he reneged on his alleged promise to Prince William.

A football insider said: ‘Warner promised England his support and he also controlled two other key votes.

If he had followed through on his promise, England would have got through the first round of voting and would have been in a good position to pick up the other votes they needed to win.’

In the 2022 bid race, Australia gave £1,270 pearl necklaces to the wives of FIFA executives. When Mr Warner found out his wife had not got one, he complained and a necklace was duly dispatched.





Why are so many international bodies utterly corrupt?

by Julian Morris, Executive Director, International Policy Network



It was really no surprise at all that Russia won the 2018 World Cup ahead of England, where the long tradition of the rule of law tends to reduce the incidence of bribery.



Allegations of corruption at FIFA have been swirling for some time. The BBC’s Panorama programme offered evidence that as far back as 1995, FIFA vice-president Issa Hayatou, of Cameroon, had taken a kickback of £10,000 from the organisation’s marketing arm, ISL.



But FIFA is hardly unique. In 1998, eleven members of the International Olympic Committee were expelled for taking bribes in relation to a bid by Salt Lake City.



Sadness: Allegations of corruption within FIFA may have cost England the World Cup

And it’s not just sporting bodies either. Remember the UN Oil For Food corruption scandal?



Saddam Hussein’s vile regime received around £8 billion in illicit income through that scheme, while Benon Sevan, head of the programme, was found to have about £100,000 in suspicious bank deposits possibly related to the rewarding of contracts to an oil company.

Even the son of then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was implicated in the affair. It is difficult to believe the rot did not go right to the top.



But these high-profile cases are just the tip of the iceberg. An everyday example of the endemic corruption at the UN occurred earlier this year, when a boat was hired to accommodate UN peacekeepers off the coast of Haiti.

The UN apparently paid $29,000 (£18,300) – two to three times the going rate – for a boat registered in Venezuela to a company with close connections to the country’s ultra Left-wing dictatorial president, Hugo Chavez.



Why is this? Are the international bodies just run by bad people? It may seem so, but that raises the question: how are they able to get away with it? It comes back to the fact that the people in charge are not accountable and nobody stops them.



Many representatives on international bodies are from states that are not democratic, or only weakly so.



Russia is a case in point. It has elections but they are rigged and the media is largely controlled by the state. When journalists dare to speak out, they are silenced with threats or bullets.



And take Hayatou’s home country, Cameroon. It hardly excels in democracy. It has been a one-party state since 1982, ruled by Paul Biya. Like Russia, it holds elections and, like Russia, the incumbent always seems to win by a large margin.

Because most international organisations operate on the principle of one-member-one-vote, small corrupt states have a disproportionate impact on outcomes.

Beneficiary: Vladimir Putin of Russia receives the congratulations of Mr Blatter

Of course, not all organisations are as corrupt. Nato and the World Trade Organisation, for example, exhibit few signs of endemic corruption.



But these exceptions prove the rule. Nato comprises democratically-elected governments, while WTO disputes are settled by independent arbitrators and conclusions are published in full for all to see.



By contrast, the UN and its various sub-organisations are run by unaccountable bureaucrats subject to barely any democratic oversight.



Even the EU – a club of democratic countries – is made up of institutions that are not properly accountable.



Legislation is initiated and implemented by the Commission, a bureaucracy with no real democratic oversight. Deals are done behind closed doors.



And, surprise surprise, it turns out that the Commission is endemically corrupt, so much so that in 2003 the entire membership was sacked.



The Commission’s auditor regularly finds major errors in the allocation of funds. Most egregious abuse has been found in the Cohesion Fund, which is used to transfer monies from wealthier countries such as Britain (whose taxpayers cough up £6.4 billion) to poorer countries such as Greece.



Of the £42 billion or so spent on ‘Cohesion’, the auditors found that more than £2 billion had been erroneously allocated.



The President of the European Court of Auditors said: ‘Most errors found related to serious failures by national authorities in applying the rules on public procurement and to the reimbursement of ineligible costs.’



That’s Eurospeak for: government officials are using our taxes to line their own pockets.



Our Government could do more to quell the tide of unaccountable, corrupt behaviour.



First it could stop funding these bodies. Why should we accept levels of probity at the EU, UN, or even FIFA that would not be acceptable at home? We should say no more cash until your books are squeaky clean.



But apparently we need not worry: the UN has a magic bullet that will eliminate corruption.



On October 31, 2003, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 58-4 designating December 9 as International Anti-Corruption Day. I’m sure the corrupt officials at FIFA, the UN and the EU will be quaking in their boots come Thursday.





