FIFA arrests: top officials arrested on charges of wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering

Mar 20, 2007
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Yep Sepp has put the kibosh on Platini getting the presidency. You beat me to it JD. I listened to this in the car today on ABC Radio's World Today program

I will put the transcript up late when they have typed it up but you can listen to the story at
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4341286.htm

Russia was always going to get 2018 before any vote and then 2022 was to go to USA but Platini pushed Qatar.
USA was definitely the preference from Blatter for its money making potential.
However Bin Hammam worked the exco voters brilliantly. Heck he even got Jack Warner (allegedly) to vote Qatar over USA
 
Have been meaning to post this Daily Mail article that came out about a month before the raids in Zurich before the FIFA AGM in late May. It confirms what Blatter said about why Platini pushed hard for Qatar to get 2022 ahead of the yanks. This isnt an Andrew Jennings article, but he works for the Daily Mail.

Qatar paid £17.17billion to host the 2022 World Cup finals, and new research shows where all that money went
Amid renewed calls for FIFA to overturn the controversial decision to hand the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, new research by the Mail on Sunday has shown just how much the oil-rich Middle East state spent on deals — including legitimate trade deals — in the course of lobbying in the run-up to the 2010 vote.

Qatar won the final round of voting 14-8 against the USA in the executive committee ballot. The MoS analysis suggests that Qatar spent an astonishing £17.2 billion directly and indirectly on the way to victory.

Much of this outlay was on goods and services for Qatar — including aerospace orders, a football club, sponsorship agreements, land and general exposure. The details are in the accompanying panel.
.....
Qatar is the world’s richest country in per capita income and even the £17.2bn is minor compared to the $200bn (£132bn) budgeted for World Cup facilities and supporting infrastructure.

WHERE ALL THE MONEY WENT...

Voter: Michel Platini (France) - £14.72bn
Spent on: Orders for airliners from France-based Airbus; buying PSG; setting up beIN SPORTS; and buying Ligue 1 TV rights, following a Nov 2010 meeting attended by Qatar’s Sheik Tamin, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Platini, who admits voting for Qatar and says he was encouraged but not forced to do so.

Nicolas Leoz (Paraguay) - £1.33bn
Spent on: Energy infrastructure deal agreed between Sheik Hamad of Qatar and Paraguay’s president Fernando Lugo on Aug 18, 2010 after Qatar’s FIFA executive voter Mohamed bin Hammam’s planned trip to lobby Leoz was replaced with governmental trip.

Worawi Makudi (Thailand) - £1.23bn
Spent on: Gas deal arising from meeting, arranged by Bin Hammam, between key aides to Makudi at the Thai FA and Qatar’s most senior energy official on Aug 16, 2010 in Doha.

Angel Maria Villar Llona (Spain) - £150m
Spent on: Sponsorship of Barcelona by Qatar Airways was one deal brokered via Spain’s voting pact with Qatar, which later became an open secret, even acknowledged by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Various African and struck-off officials - £99m
Spent on: Bid budget and miscellaneous expenses. This included cash spent on buying exclusive access to influence Confederation of African Football voters ($1.8m); meetings to offer $1m to the son of struck-off voter Adams Adamu for staging a dinner; and costs defending another struck-offer voter, Reynald Temarii of Oceania.

Julio Grondona (Argentina) - £59m
Spent on: Allegedly spent clearing the debts of Argentina FA; and unconfirmed sums paid by Qatar firm to sponsor November 2010 Argentina-Brazil friendly in Doha.

Marios Lefkaritis (Cyprus) - £27m
Spent on: Piece of land owned by Lefkaritis in Nicosia by Qatar investment firm. Lefkaritis doesn’t deny the deal but denies any wrongdoing.

Ricardo Teixeira (Brazil) - £6.7m
Spent on: Sponsoring Brazil friendlies including against Argentina in Qatar in 2010 by Qatari interests.

Various officials - £4.8m
Spent on: Alleged cash bungs by Bin Hammam from 10 slush funds to a range of football officials from across Africa ($5m) and Asia ($1.7m) among others.

Issa Hayatou (Cameroon) & Jacques Anouma (Ivory Costa) - £1m each
Spent on: Alleged in Parliament that they were given grants for no-strings ‘development’ funding.

Jack Warner (Trinidad &Tobago) - £933,000
Spent on: Two cash lumps allegedly linked to Warner’s support, and then his silence, over corruption.

Other voters for Qatar included Chung ****-joon of South Korea, whom Bin Hammam later helped secure honorary FIFA vice-presidency, and Junji Ogura of Japan, seen as squeaky clean, who voted for Qatar after Japan dropped out. Bin Hammam voted for Qatar and the 14th vote is understood to have come from either Senes Erzik of Turkey, whose PM is a close friend of the Qatar royals, or Hany Abo Rida of Egypt, paid to join Bin Hammam on campaigning trips.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...-research-shows-money-went.html#ixzz3pvg4mvrp
 
USA was definitely the preference from Blatter for its money making potential.
However Bin Hammam worked the exco voters brilliantly. Heck he even got Jack Warner (allegedly) to vote Qatar over USA
Yep see my post of the Daily Mail investigation.
 
Dec 22, 2009
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lol @ the cyprian exco member selling land to Qatar for £27m, voting for Qatar and claiming it to be unrelated.

With the amounts of monies involved no wonder corruption runs rampant in the middle east. Likes of Abu Dhabi, Qatar & Bahrain also have appalling human rights records.
 
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Platini and the Turk FIFA member tactically voted to get England knocked out in round one ,just out of spite.
Then voted for Qatar in the 2022 bidding. Platini is just as bad as Blatter or Warner .
farkkin hate Platini. He was in a position to do something about all this shite and instead he stuck his fat s**t face in the trough. moomba 's best mate David Gill should take over.
 
More arrests in Zurich this morning Zurich time. Raid happened at same hotel as last time in May.

FIFA Corruption Case Brings Another Wave of Pre-Dawn Arrests
ZURICH — Swiss authorities began a new series of pre-dawn arrests Thursday in the broad investigation, led by United States officials, into corruption in international soccer. More than a dozen people were expected to be charged, law enforcement officials said, nearly doubling the size of an already huge case that has upended FIFA, soccer’s multibillion-dollar governing body.

Some of the arrests took place at the same luxury hotel where other FIFA officials were arrested in May. Swiss police entered the hotel, the Baur au Lac, through a side door at 6 a.m. local time. A hotel manager told visitors in the lobby they had to leave the property because of “an extreme situation.”

The police were targeting current and former senior soccer officials on charges that include racketeering, money laundering and fraud, authorities said. The new charges were expected to hit South and Central American soccer leaders particularly hard, the officials said.

Alfredo Hawit of Honduras and Juan Ángel Napout of Paraguay were among those arrested, multiple people familiar with the investigation said. Hawit is the president of Concacaf, the regional confederation that includes North and Central America and the Caribbean. Napout is the president of Conmebol, the South American confederation. Both are FIFA vice presidents and members of the powerful executive committee. Hawit assumed control of Concacaf last spring, following the indictment of Jeffrey Webb, the confederation’s former president.
......

The full roster of people charged Thursday morning was not immediately clear. Law enforcement officials said the list did not include Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s longtime president, or Jérôme Valcke, his suspended deputy.

Swiss authorities confirmed on Thursday morning that they had taken two FIFA officials into custody and that those individuals were accused of accepting millions of dollars in bribes related to the sale of marketing rights for World Cup qualifying matches and soccer tournaments in Latin America.
.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/sports/fifa-scandal-arrests-in-switzerland.html?_r=0
 
CAS rules that Platini has to serve 90 day provisional suspension but FIFA cant extend it, ie if the Ethics Committee hasnt ruled by 90th day then provisional suspension is finished. It doesnt stop them giving a longer permanent suspension.

http://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Media_Release_Platini_FIFA_1112_final.pdf
MEDIA RELEASE
FOOTBALL - FIFA
THE 90-DAY PROVISIONAL SUSPENSION IMPOSED ON MICHEL PLATINI REMAINS IN FORCE, BUT FIFA IS ORDERED NOT TO EXTEND IT

Lausanne, 11 December 2015 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has partially upheld the request for provisional measures filed by Michel Platini requesting that his 90-day provisional suspension from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international levels be lifted until a final decision on the merits of the dispute is taken by the FIFA Ethics Committee.

On 20 November 2015, Michel Platini filed an appeal against the FIFA Appeal Committee decision, notified on 18 November 2015, confirming the decision rendered on 7 October 2015 by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee to impose a provisional ban of 90 days on him. The 90-day period expires on 5 January 2016.

The CAS Panel, composed of Mr Clifford Hendel (France/USA), President, Mr Rui Botica Santos (Portugal) and Prof. Ulrich Haas (Germany), determined that maintaining the provisional suspension for the remainder of the 90 days does not cause irreparable harm to Michel Platini at this point in time. Indeed, the CAS Panel has noted that, at the hearing of 8 December 2015, FIFA’s representatives confirmed FIFA’s assurances expressed earlier that the FIFA Ethics Committee would render its final decision on the merits on or before 5 January 2016, i.e. before the provisional suspension comes to an end. The CAS Panel also emphasized that, even if the ban were lifted at this time, such measure would not give any guarantee to Michel Platini that the FIFA ad hoc electoral committee would validate his candidature for the FIFA presidential election before 5 January 2016.

However, the CAS Panel considered that the situation would change if FIFA were to extend the provisional suspension for any period up to 45 days, on the basis of “exceptional circumstances” as permitted by Art. 85 of the FIFA Code of Ethics. The Panel found that such an extension would constitute an undue and unjustified restriction of Michel Platini’s right of access to justice, cause irreparable harm to him and also tip the balance of interest test in his favour. As a consequence, the CAS Panel ordered FIFA not to extend the current provisional suspension imposed on Michel Platini.

http://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Media_Release_Platini_FIFA_1112_final.pdf
 
Last Monday Andrew Jennings did what will probably be his last investigative piece on FIFA for BBC's equivalent of 4 Corners, their leading current affairs program Panorama. The story in full is at this you tube link to his FIFA, Sepp Blatter and Me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tkl9d
Reporter Andrew Jennings has been investigating corruption in world football for the past 15 years. He has exposed the criminality of Fifa executives and repeatedly challenged its president to come clean.

Now with football in crisis, Andrew is once again back on the road investigating Sepp Blatter's Fifa. His reports includes an insight into an FBI investigation, puts a figure on what Qatar supposedly spent to secure the 2022 World Cup and promises fresh evidence that Sepp Blatter has known about corruption all along.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tkl9d

 
Oct 5, 2009
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8 years seems an odd amount of time
WADA/USADA have life bans for Armstrong and co. who provided no assistance, or 8 years for those who appealed the initial life ban eg one of his 3 doctors and director sportif Johan Bruyneel and provided some co-operation after nothing at first, so those national anti-doping organisations have set their penalties based on what courts have decided on appeals etc prior to WADA Code set up in 2005. CAS have gone along with these penalty time frames accepting them as reasonable penalties. Also 8-10 years is the time frame for 2nd violation offences or the first violation at the serious end, but not worth a life time ban.

Given CAS's head quarters are in Switzerland and there probably will be appeals to CAS rather than the Swiss courts, I suspect the FIFA ethics committee have taken this into account and lined it up with those type of offences and likely appeals to CAS, and what CAS has ruled previously is an acceptable time frame for a serious sporting offences.
 
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