"I am concerned that, to date, this matter has not been reported to you by the FFA ... [given] the potential ramifications for Australian officials and the FFA in terms of due diligence." Senator Xenophon is calling on the FFA to demand the resignation of FIFA chief Sepp Blatter. Credit:AFP The 2010 payment by the FFA to former FIFA executive Jack Warner, and its failure to report its alleged theft, has dogged the Australian football body for years and has been thrust back into the spotlight by the dramatic charging of Warner by US authorities. The $500,000 payment by the FFA to a football association bank account controlled by Warner – a payment ostensibly made to redevelop a stadium in Trinidad and Tobago – raises serious questions about the FFA's due diligence and efforts to win favour with Warner in 2010, as it was trying to secure the Caribbean soccer chief's support for Australia's push to host the World Cup. On Wednesday, a US probe led to the arrest on corruption and racketeering charges of Warner and several former and serving FIFA chiefs.

While the $500,000 Australian payment isn't listed in the indictment that led to the arrests, Fairfax Media understands it has been subject to an assessment by US authorities. Former FIFA executive Jack Warner. Credit:Reuters US investigators involved in the FIFA corruption probe may have jurisdiction over the matter as the payment was made via a bank with a branch in the US. The FFA on Thursday defended its failure to report the matter to Australian or US police on the basis that FIFA – the organisation now at the centre of an international corruption storm – asked them not to. "FFA has been awaiting developments in this matter, having been advised previously that investigations were ongoing into the alleged misappropriation by Jack Warner of funds paid by FFA," a football federation spokesman said.

In 2010, when the FFA made the payment to the bank account of a regional soccer organisation linked closely to Mr Warner, he had been openly accused for years of corruption and of using the organisation for personal gain. Mr Xenophon's police referral comes in addition to a separate referral about the alleged Warner theft made on Thursday to the federal police by former top Australian football official Bonita Mersiades. On Thursday afternoon, Ms Mersiades wrote to federal police Assistant Commissioner Ian McCartney, who heads the fraud and bribery portfolio, to request they assess the matter and refer it to the US investigation. The AFP confirmed it has been contacted by Ms Mersiades and Mr Xenophon, but declined to comment further. Ms Mersiades is the former corporate affairs manager of the FFA and has become a strident critic of corruption in football after leaving the FFA in 2010.

Mr Xenophon and Ms Mersiades have both urged the FFA to formally report to the FBI the alleged theft of the $500,000. "It seems like the FFA has been caught up in this web of intrigue which shows what a corrupt house of cards FIFA is," Mr Xenophon said. The pair are also calling for the FFA to demand the resignation of FIFA boss Sepp Blatter. In 2014, Fairfax Media first revealed that the FFA had not called in the federal police to investigate the findings of a 2013 inquiry that Warner allegedly stole $500,000 from the FFA. Ms Mersiades said the reason the FFA was reluctant to report the theft may be because it could further expose the highly risky manner in which it gave "international development" grants to corruption-riddled overseas football bodies at a time when the FFA was also seeking their support for Australia's bid to host the World Cup.

The arrests on Tuesday of Warner and his fellow former and serving FIFA bosses were made as FIFA's 209 national member associations were gathering for the group's presidential election, held every four years. The charges, backed by an FBI investigation, allege widespread corruption in FIFA over the past two decades, involving bids for World Cups as well as marketing and broadcast deals, according to three law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the case. The indictment names 14 people on charges including racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. In addition to senior soccer officials, the indictment is also expected to name sports-marketing executives from the United States and South America who are accused of paying more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for media deals associated with major soccer tournaments. The official said the soccer officials charged are Jeffrey Webb, Eugenio Figueredo, Eduardo Li, Julio Rocha, Costas Takkas, Rafael Esquivel, Jose Maria Marin, Nicolas Leoz and Warner. Warner's alleged theft of the $500,000 FFA funds was revealed in April 2013 in a widely publicised formal inquiry by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) integrity committee. It found that $US462,200 the FFA had deposited in a regional soccer organisation's bank account had most likely been stolen by Warner, who controlled the account.

The funds were sent to the account after the FFA met with Warner and agreed to donate to the development of a stadium in Trinidad and Tobago. "The funds were paid to CONCACAF by FFA in the form of a check ... to CONCACAF which was deposited into a bank account maintained at Republic National Bank in Trinidad and Tobago, an account in which, earlier that year, Warner had deposited personal reimbursement funds from CONCACAF," the inquiry found. In 2010, Fairfax Media revealed that the FFA gave pearl necklaces to the wives of top FIFA officials, including Warner, spent tens of thousands of dollars flying a junior Caribbean football team to a match and paid more than $1 million to consultant Peter Hargitay, who claimed privately to be able to deliver Warner's vote to the FFA. With New York Times