Fifa corruption: Sepp Blatter blasts US authorities over investigation

[umbertino]

Re-elected president of world football’s governing body suggests arrests were timed to interfere with Zurich congress, while IRS official warns of more charges

 

 

Tom Lutz in New York, Owen Gibson in Zurich, Warren Murray and agencies

 

Saturday 30 May 2015 06.02 BST

 

 

 

The re-elected Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, has said he was “shocked” at the way US authorities targeted football’s world body and slammed what he called a “hate” campaign by Europe’s football leaders.

 

In an interview with Swiss television, Blatter said he suspected the arrest of seven Fifa officials in Zurich on Wednesday under a US anti-corruption warrant was an attempt to “interfere with the congress” on Friday at which he retained his post.

 

He told RTS: “No one is going to tell me that it was a simple coincidence, this American attack two days before the elections of Fifa. It doesn’t smell good.

 

“Why would I step down? That would mean I recognise that I did wrong. I fought for the last three or four years against all the corruption.”

 

Blatter’s attack came as authorities in the US warned of further charges in the Fifa bribery investigation and investigators in Argentina raided the offices of sports media companies.

 

The Fifa president condemned comments made by US officials including the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who said corruption in football was “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted, both abroad and here in the United States”.

 

Blatter said of the remarks: “Of course I am shocked. I would never as Fifa president make comments about another organisation without being certain of what has happened.”

 

Richard Weber – the IRS chief in charge of the criminal investigations and the man who accused Fifa of a “World Cup of fraud” – said late on Friday that he was “fairly confident” of another round of indictments. In Britain, the Serious Fraud Office has said it is “actively assessing material in its possession” regarding the Fifa allegations.

 

Blatter, in the Swiss interview, noted that the US had lost the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, and England, another major critic, lost the 2018 World Cup to Russia. He said the US was the “number one sponsor” of Jordan, home of his unsuccessful challenger for the the Fifa presidency, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein.

 

Blatter also hit out at the Uefa president, Michel Platini, who had called for his resignation over the corruption scandals. “It is a hate that comes not just from a person at Uefa,” he said, “it comes from the Uefa organisation that cannot understand that in 1998 I became president.”

 

Asked whether he would forgive Platini for the resignation calls, Blatter said: “I forgive everyone, but I do not forget.” The Fifa executive committee is to meet in Zurich on Saturday.

 

Several senior Fifa figures have been charged over alleged bribery and kickback schemes, although no charges were brought against Blatter.

 

US authorities announced on Wednesday that nine officials and five sports media and promotions executives were charged in cases involving more than $150m in alleged bribes over a period of 24 years. They said their investigation exposed complex money laundering schemes, millions of dollars in untaxed incomes and tens of millions in offshore accounts held by Fifa officials.

 

On Friday, Interpol agents also raided the offices of three Argentinian businessmen accused by the US of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes, local media reported.

 

Argentinia citizens Alejandro Burzaco, the president of sports media and promotions firm Torneos y Competencias, as well as Hugo Jinkis and his son Mariano – who own Full Play – are among the 14 hit with US graft charges.

 

A judge on Thursday ordered their arrests and the country’s tax agency formally accused them of tax evasion and money laundering. But on Friday they and two other defendants had apparently still not been detained. US officials are seeking to extradite defendants who remain abroad.

 

The US indictment states Burzaco and the two Jinkises led their companies to form a new entity known as Datisa, and then conspired to win lucrative TV rights through the payment of up to $110m in bribes.

 

Datisa allegedly signed a $317.5m contract with the South American soccer confederation, Conmebol, to obtain exclusive worldwide rights to the 2015, 2019 and 2023 Copa America tournaments. It later entered a $35m contract with the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, Concacaf, to acquire rights for another tournament.

 

Three top Conmebol officials, including the president of the Argentinian Football Association, were to receive a total of $45m in kickbacks, the indictment said. The rest was to be disbursed among other officials.

 

On Friday, Blatter defied critics and his opponents within Fifa to secure a fifth term at its helm, and vowed to fix things. He said: “Starting tomorrow … I’m being held accountable for the storm. OK, I will shoulder that responsibility.”

 

But Blatter also appeared to discount his own responsibility for the scandal. “We can’t constantly supervise everyone in football,” he insisted. “You can’t just ask people to behave ethically just like that.”

 

Blatter’s understated opponent in the leadership vote, Jordanian Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, had warned Fifa delegates that “everything is at stake” in the wake of the dramatic events of this week, when Swiss police swooped on the Baur au Lac hotel to arrest the seven senior Fifa officials.

 

Seven more were charged in the US and four more, including the former Concacaf general secretary Chuck Blazer, pleaded guilty. In all they were charged with 47 counts of money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion.

 

Brazil’s Fifa executive committee member Marco Polo del Nero fled Zurich before the meeting following the arrest of his predecessor, José Maria Marin, on Wednesday. Like the Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb, of the Cayman Islands, and five others, Marin is being held in custody while appealing against extradition to the US.

 

The seven executives arrested in Zurich, including the Fifa vice-presidents Webb and Eugenio Figueredo, remained in custody and were fighting extradition to the US.

 

Ali polled 73 votes to Blatter’s 133. On that showing the Jordanian was eligible to take the contest to a potential second round but he withdrew.

 

In contrast to his opponent, who sought to rally his “Fifa family”, Prince Ali warned that the world was watching and “Fifa does not exist in a bubble”.

 

It could yet prove a pyrrhic victory for Blatter, who has weathered the storm in the short term but is left presiding over a split Fifa as he faces the biggest self-inflicted crisis in its 111-year history.

 

As investigations continue in the US, Uefa, European football’s governing body, will again loudly demand reform.

 

Its executives meet in Berlin next weekend before the Champions League final and were in militant mood after Blatter triumphed. Its 53 members mostly backed Ali, and Platini said it could withdraw co-operation.

 

The Football Association’s chairman, Greg Dyke, has said that England could boycott the World Cup if other European nations decided to do so.

 

Outside the the bubble of the Fifa Congress the pressure on Blatter increased. Jack Warner, the controversial Trinidadian former Concacaf president who was once one of Blatter’s closest allies and among those charged on Wednesday, delivered a thinly veiled threat after being released on bail. To hoots and applause from supporters in Trinidad, Warner said: “If I have been thieving Fifa money for 30 years, who gave me the money? How come he is not charged?”

 

After Blatter’s re-election, Fifa sponsors Coca-Cola, Budweiser and McDonald’s called for quick moves to transparency. Credit card company Visa has threatened to “reassess” its sponsorship if Fifa does not clean up its act, while Hyundai has said it is “extremely concerned” at the new scandals.

 

 

 

Sepp Blatter celebrates his re-election as Fifa president.

Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Fifa

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/30/warning-of-more-fifa-corruption-charges-as-sepp-blatter-retains-presidency