Sepp Blatter respond to British press reports about FIFA corruption

[David Guyatt]

Hubble Bubble continues...

World Cup: Whistleblower Phaedra Al-Majid claims FBI are protecting her after she received threats

By Lia Hervey, Sky Sports News HQ | Last Updated: 20/11/14 7:11am

FIFA whistleblower Phaedra Al-Majid says she will spend the rest of her life in fear






FIFA whistleblower Phaedra Al-Majid has revealed her fears






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FIFA whistleblower Phaedra Al-Majid has told Sky how she is fearing for her life and that the FBI is protecting her following her allegations over the Qatar World Cup bid.
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Al-Majid was one of 70 witnesses who spoke anonymously to FIFA investigator Michael Garcia, providing information, documents, data and recordings which she claimed proved corruption during the bidding process for the 2022 World Cup.
Al-Majid told Sky: "I was at home watching TV and then there were three FBI agents at my doorstep and said they wanted to talk to me. I let them in and they said to me, We are here because we know you have received threats and we know the security and that of your children has been jeopardised, so we want to be here to see what we can do to help you'.

"Do I regret being the Qatar whistleblower? It's cost me personally, it has cost me emotionally. I know for a fact I will be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life."

Phaedra Al-Majid



"It was terrifying. I opened up the door and there were three men there with their badges and they asked me all questions pertaining to my time in Qatar, what I had observed, what I had witnessed, everything and especially about the threats and affidavit."
The former head of international media for the Qatar 2022 bid was dismissed by her bid team in 2010. Shortly after Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, she made claims of impropriety surrounding the Qatar 2022 bid. In 2011 she retracted those claims.
Last week a 42-page summary of the 18-month investigation into both the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process was published by FIFA judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, who revealed the full investigation could never be made public due to "legal issues". One of the reasons he cited was to ensure confidentiality of witnesses.
Following publication, Garcia released a statement claiming the summary contained "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions".





What next for FIFA?




Al-Majid added: "Do I regret being the Qatar whistleblower? It's cost me personally, it has cost me emotionally. I know for a fact I will be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. It's cost me my credibility and most importantly, it's cost the security for both me and my children. However I did witness something and I do believe that I did have to say what I witnessed."
She said she had "broken a confidentially contract" by talking about the Qatar 2022 bid and the Qataris were threatening to sue her for $1m (£640,000). She claimed this was enough to ruin her financially and put the future of her two children, one of them severely disabled, in jeopardy, which is why she withdrew her allegations.
Al-Majid has said she shares Garcia's view that the summary contained "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions".





Dyke dismisses FIFA claims




She said of FIFA: "They broke their own ethics code. Remember I'm one single mum against the richest country in the world and the richest sporting organisation in the world.
"I think I was very naive. I wasn't prepared for the backlash. I wasn't prepared for the way whistleblowers are treated. We are the bad guys.
"FIFA reform would be wonderful but FIFA does have to, if it wants to be considered credible, it has to protect its whistleblowers and they have to acknowledge that they did not protect me according to their own code of ethics."
FIFA responded by stating that the names of witnesses were not disclosed in judge Eckert's statement last week, but said that any potential breach of confidentiality should be examined by their disciplinary committee.
Qatar 2022 have also responded to Al-Majid's allegations by releasing a statement.
The statement read: "This evening, Ms. Al Majid has made certain allegations in the media. Despite having previously withdrawn those allegations, she was given a "full and fair opportunity" to air those allegations afresh to the Garcia Enquiry in the course of discussions with her that spanned "more than a year" and involved "voluminous records and other materials".
"According to Judge Eckert, that Enquiry identified serious inconsistencies in her evidence, which severely prejudiced the credibility of that evidence.
"For our part, as Judge Eckert has found, we supplied "full and valuable" assistance to the Garcia Enquiry. That assistance concerned these allegations, as well as all others. We stand by the quality and integrity of our bid and will not comment further at this time on allegations that have been, over a period of years, investigated, tested, considered and dismissed."


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[David Guyatt]

For quite a long time I have assumed that the FA had access to Her Majesty's spies and probably receive a daily intelligence digest in the same way that many big British corporation do to aid their business interests. This story seems to me to be that, albeit packaged as "ex members" etc.

2018 World Cup bid: Ex-MI6 officers 'found corruption' while spying on Russia during battle to host tournament

Commons committee publishes dossier containing allegations of bribery against Russian officials, including gift of a Picasso

PAUL PEACHEY


Sunday 30 November 2014



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England's World Cup bid team uncovered a host of corruption allegations at the top of world football after using ex-MI6 officers and overseas diplomats in a spying campaign against Russia during the battle to host the 2018 tournament, according to new claims.

In a tale of international intrigue, the English bid employed private security firms and a web of international contacts while the Russian leader Vladimir Putin called in a "select group of oligarchs" to make sure their bid succeeded. The tit-for-tat methods employed by the rival camps are revealed in a document released by the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.
Roman Abramovich, the chairman of Chelsea FC, was personally given the task of using his wealth and status in world football to bring the 2018 World Cup to Russia, according to a 13-page dossier compiled by reporters for The Sunday Times.
"Roman was absolutely integral to the Russian bid," an ex-MI6 source told the newspaper. "I remember seeing him attending private meetings with [the Fifa chief] Sepp Blatter in South Africa and thinking to myself, We don't do that, so we are f***ed'." He added: "Roman was very visible. Any suggestion that he paid money, I don't know. The way he operates you'd never find out."
The newspaper's dossier includes new claims of bribes to Fifa officials and illicit vote-swapping. It said that the bid team did not outline some of their concerns to a Fifa anti-corruption probe because they were concerned about being sued. Private ex-intelligence investigators carried out surveillance on the eight other rival bidding nations for the 2018 World Cup, paid for by sponsors and associates of the bid team, according to the document.
Britain's embassies abroad were also used to collect information that was fed onto an encrypted database. Embassies tracked the movements of the Russia 2018 bid team as they travelled the world lobbying voters and provided information on the activities of two former members of the Fifa executive committee, the document said.

READ MORE: BLATTER INSISTS 2022 WORLD CUP WILL REMAIN IN QATAR
FRAUD OFFICE PURSUES INQUIRY INTO BIDS
SAM WALLACE: FIFA IS REACHING ITS ENDGAME

Russia started a corrupt attempt to influence the outcome of the 2018 World Cup in mid-2010 after Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the campaign fearing humiliation in the vote, according to the submission. The spying operation focused on Russia which the bid team feared was conducting its own surveillance operation on the English bid.
The security services advised the team on its own anti-spying measures which included sweeping rooms for bugs and locking up phones in lead boxes when they met power-brokers who would decide the destination of the World Cup, the document said.
Despite the backing of David Cameron, David Beckham and Prince William, the England campaign ended with a defeat to Russia, while Qatar won the secret ballot for the 2022 tournament.
A spokesman for Mr Abramovich told the newspaper there was nothing "untoward" about his involvement in the Russia bid, according to the document. The spokesman was not available for comment on Sunday.
Roman Abramovich after Russia was awarded the bid in 2010: he is described as integral' to its successThe newspaper said that Qatar and Russia agreed to vote for each other after brokering a deal over a huge gas extraction project in Siberia. "The bid was never going to win because of the corruption on the other side," according to an ex-MI6 source quoted in the newspaper's document. "It was the scale of the defeat that was the shock."
Details of the extent of the covert operation came as part of a series of new allegations of corruption involving some of the most senior figures of the game. They followed accusations of a Fifa whitewash after it conducted its own investigation but refused to publish a full account of its findings.
A summary of the investigation by the US district attorney Michael Garcia released by Fifa last month cleared the Qatar and Russia bids of wrongdoing. Mr Garcia challenged Fifa's response to his full report and accused it of containing "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts".
The English bid's database included claims that the Russian bid team gave Michel Platini, the head of Uefa, a painting by Picasso from the vaults of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in return for his vote for Russia, according to the document. The painting was said to have been handed over by Viacheslav Koloskov, a former member of Fifa's executive committee. The database was also said to contain intelligence that Mr Koloskov gave another painting to Michel d'Hooghe, the Belgian representative.
He admitted in 2011 that he received a painting from his former colleague Mr Koloskov after a lunch in Bruges and said he put the "absolutely ugly" painting in his attic after failing to give it away to his secretary. Mr Platini has denied receiving a painting from anyone involved in the Russia 2018 bid.
The document also includes fresh claims against Franz Beckenbauer, the former German footballing great and administrator, who is one of five current or former Fifa executives under investigation as a result of the inquiry by Mr Garcia. The England bid team received intelligence that two consultants were seeking fees of millions of pounds which would guarantee the vote of Mr Beckenbauer, then the German representative for Fifa, who was alleged by an England 2018 source to be "the most corrupt of the lot". Mr Beckenbauer has previously denied wrongdoing.
FA officials questioned by the Garcia probe did not raise the question of the database because of legal concerns but he had access to it, according to the document. It also claims that the England bid team colluded with the South Korea 2022 bid on the eve of the ballot to trade votes in a breach of Fifa rules. Despite the secret deal, the South Korean delegate allegedly reneged on the deal and backed Russia.
In a statement, the FA said its bid chief executive Andy Anson shared any intelligence that he believed could be substantiated with Mr Garcia when he was interviewed as part of the anti-corruption inquiry. "Everything else was hearsay, gossip and rumour," the FA said.
The allegations are the latest in a series of claims by the newspaper that secured a cache of hundreds of millions of documents from a Fifa whistleblower which showed a string of illicit payments by Qatar's former Fifa vice president Mohamed bin Hammam to officials around the world.
The reports, widespread criticisms of Fifa, and an ongoing investigation by the FBI in the United States have so far proved insufficient to remove Mr Blatter. The latest allegations based on the bid team's database were described by a source in the Sunday Times document as not "legally credible" as they were not enough comprehensively to prove corruption.
But the publication of the Sunday Times document by the parliamentary committee gives it some protection against being sued for libel by the people it names.

[David Guyatt]

From Football Is Fixed blogspot - an insider of the betting industry:

football is fixed

WE, THE ARBITRAGEURS OF THE NEOHYPERREALITIES OF POST-STRUCTURALIST FOOTBALL - EXPOSING CORRUPTION SINCE 2006

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Omertà

The two women who acted as whistleblowers over the multiple corruptions within FIFA have been publicly traduced by Judge Hans-Joachim Eckert.
Bonita Mersiades and Phaedra Almajid both now live in fear for their families and themselves.
These FIFA corruptions have effectively been whitewashed in a secret report at the expense of the lives of two women (Almajid now has FBI protection).

This will no doubt discourage any future moral and ethical stances over the utter lack of integrity in global football just as the treatments of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange would tend to make any political whistleblower think twice.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the FIFA Affair (Qatargate) is that it is a clear indication of how the locus of football criminality has shifted towards the blackest of markets in recent years. In the current scenario, Michael Garcia is being painted as a white knight riding to the rescue against the smoke-filled backroom deals and payments of bribes and other enhancing consumerisms of FIFA.

We discussed this in a previous article when Garcia was appointed to this role: "A parallel example of murkiness is at FIFA where the Secretary General of Interpol, Ronald Noble, supported the appointment of Michael Garcia as FIFA chief investigator of corruption when Garcia's review of the FIFA/ISL scandal is seen as a cover up by Reform consultant Michael Pieth and FIFA judge Hans-Joachim Eckert."

Manus manum lavat.

So we have a standard Italian structure being the cover up of choice - football needs a mani pulite (clean hands) approach to dealing with corruption.

But the cover ups spread further.
There are four primary bodies addressing matchfixing in world football - Interpol, Europol, Early Warning and Federbet.
None are fit for purpose and all have private hidden agendas.
If an individual chooses to whistleblow a corrupted match to any of these bodies, the most likely action is inaction.

And the national associations and leagues are no better.
We would not dream of disclosing our evidences of matchfixing in the Premier League to Richard Scudamore or the FA.
And, higher up the feeding chain Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga, understands that presenting evidence of matchfixing in Spain results in absolutely no reaction.

And over the last two days in London, the FA has launched the Sports Betting Integrity Forum with inputs from all the main British/Gibraltan bodies who are only concerned about matchfixing when they are outside the loop of insider trading.
All five bookmakers involved either accept insider money and/or actively orchestrate criminalities.

On the bases established by these whitewashes, the foundations of future corruptions are built.

Yesterday, Narayanaswami Srinivasan was laughably cleared of orchestrating matchfixing and spotfixing in IPL cricket matches in 2013 despite the evidence of taped conversations and his close alliances with the underground bookmaking world.
Earlier this year, he had remarkably been appointed as chairman of the International Cricket Council despite the scandals swirling around him.
What message does this send to the participants in the new IPL football expansion (and, by the way, it is surely not totally surprising that the three main English participants in this competition are Michael Chopra, Peter Reid and that undischarged bankrupt of dubious integrity, David James)?

These sporting corruptions parallel clearly with the world of mainstream capitalism and offshore financial centres.
For example, Grace Perez-Navarro of the OECD thinks that money laundering will be a historical anomaly by 2018.
It won't.
Lack of staff, lack of backing, lack of expertise, lack of regulation, lack of political will and yet to be created distortions of integrity will see to that.

Similarly amusing is the hyperreality that the UK police are to utilise the expertise of the Royal Bank of Scotland to address financial fraud in markets...
... that would be the same Royal Bank of Scotland that has just been found guilty of currency benchmark manipulations!

Manus manum lavat.

Global corruption requires global action and global regulation, not internalised double-teaming.

© Football is Fixed 2006-2014