You're reading: Investigators will question Russia on World Cup bid

Swiss authorities lobbed a grenade at Russia’s already tainted award to host the 2018 World Cup when it started criminal proceedings on suspected “mismanagement and money laundering in connection with the allocation” of the world’s most watched sporting event.

That same morning on May 27 in America, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging nine senior officials of FIFA, the world soccer governing body, and five corporate executives for racketeering conspiracy and corruption. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch at a May 27 joint news conference with the FBI and IRS, accused FIFA of turning soccer “into a criminal enterprise.”

Switzerland’s attorney general announced on May 27 that it seized electronic data and bank documents from the Zurich headquarters of FIFA in connection with the investigation.

Ten of the 22 FIFA executive committee members, who voted for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids five years ago, including current Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, are to be questioned.

He told the Associated Press on May 27 that Russia welcomes the investigation and that it will go ahead with preparations to host the soccer tournament.

“We’ve got nothing to hide…We’re prepared to show everything,” Mutko told AP while in Zurich to attend FIFA’s congress this week and presidential election scheduled for May 29. ‘’How can it (preparations) be obstructed? …We have a contract with FIFA and we’re getting ready to hold the draw.’’

However, Russia hasn’t got much to show in the first plae because computers belonging to its bid committee had been destroyed, according to a FIFA report published in November that investigated alleged wrongdoing, including bribery, kickbacks and vote trading, ahead of the Dec. 2, 2010 secret ballot.

It largely cleared Qatar, the winner to host the 2022 tournament, and Russia of corruption. Yet FIFA was criticized for not fully disclosing the findings of Michael Garcia, a former U.S. attorney who was hired as the governing body’s ethics investigator and wrote a 430-page report.

He subsequently resigned saying FIFA’s summary account of his corruption investigation misrepresented his findings and contained “numerous erroneous representations of the facts.”
FIFA spokesman Walter De Greggorio told reporters in Zurich on May 27 that it was the soccer promoting body that initiated the Swiss investigation when it lodged a legal complaint with the federal attorney on Nov. 18.

“FIFA is the damaged party…and this is in our highest interest to have all open questions answered in the light of this complaint we lodged,” he said, later adding, upon a follow-up question from a journalist, that “we all are the damaged party, including the fans.”

He also said the Swiss authorities were given Garcia’s report last year and promised to make it public “once all the criminal cases are concluded.”

In a separate investigation and acting on a U.S. indictment, Swiss police the same day arrested seven senior soccer officials, including two FIFA vice presidents, at the five-star hotel in Zurich on the eve of the governing body’s two-day congress.

Officials had for the past quarter century solicited and received “well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for their official support of the sports marketing executives who agreed to make the unlawful payments,” reads the indictment.

After the FIFA headquarters raid, Europe’s soccer governing body,
UEFA, issued a statement that said this week’s congress in Zurich risked
turning into a “farce,” and called for the event’s postponement,
including a six-month deferment of the presidential election.

Loretta also alleged FIFA executives accepted bribes to help secure the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and that bribery was involved in the governing body’s 2011 elections for president and the 2016 Copa America tournament.

“This really is the World Cup of fraud, and today we are issuing FIFA a red card,” Richard Weber, head of the IRS Criminal Investigation division, said at the conference.

Unlike the investigation by Swiss authorities, the U.S. Justice Department proceedings drew sharp criticism from the World Cup 2018 host nation.

On May 28, Russian president Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. government of meddling into FIFA affairs in attempts to disrupt Sepp Blatter’s fifth reelection as president for a four-year term in a “most blatant violation of international organizations principle of functioning.”

Russia’s eventual successful World Cup bid was tainted from the outset. Critics argued that opportunities for illicit voter trading would arise by holding a simultaneous vote for the 2018 and 2022 competitions.

A report by The Sunday Times based on leaked documents from investigators who worked for the British bid team, say that’s exactly what happened. Russia and Qatar traded votes and pursued joint Siberian gas production deals.

Russian officials denied wrongdoing.

If Russia and Qatar lose their World Cup hosting rights, “it would have serious implications for football, for sports as a wider community,” said Jens Sejer Andersen, international director of Play the Game, a Danish non-profit group that promotes ethics and integrity in sports.

He said that a re-vote would “break many existing power structures in football…that’s why I don’t find it likely that FIFA on its own would jeopardize this alliance between political power and big sports political power.”

Seventy percent of the soccer governing body’s $5.7 billion in total revenues for 2011-2014 was attributable to the sale of TV and marketing rights to the 2014 World Cup.

British soccer author and analyst Simon Kuper told the Kyiv Post that it is “overly optimistic to expect a new, cleansed FIFA to emerge…or to think the World Cups of 2018 and 2022 will be taken away from Russia and Qatar if it can be shown they paid bribes.”

Referring to Russia, Play the Game’s Andersen said there also should be basic criteria for hosting mega events such as, “respect of basic human rights, labor rights, and peace keeping among nations.”

Taking away the World Cup from Russia, thus, would “hit a very sensitive, fundamental nerve,” Andersen added.