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Quin.
???
Registered: Oct 2010
Posts: 33318 - Threads: 426
Location: london
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Pretty damning article from the australian whistleblower:
Editor's note: Bonita Mersiades was Head of Corporate & Public Affairs at Football Federation Australia until January 2010, was previously team manager of the men's national team (the "Socceroos") and is a lifelong football fan. She is currently co-director of three online publications (including a football site) and is a volunteer in grassroots football. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- One of the questions I've been asked the most in the 10 days since judge Hans-Joachim Eckert's summary was published of Michael Garcia's report into the conduct of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids, is the extent to which I'm upset with the comments about me as the "Australian whistleblower."
The answer is: not that much -- and there are two reasons.
First, the report is an investigation into FIFA of the world governing body's decisions and processes, conducted by Garcia who is paid by FIFA. The conclusions reached are that there's really nothing to worry about when it comes to FIFA. Surprise. Do you see the pattern here?
Second, while it wasn't nice to read what was written about me and it wasn't what I expected, it is also untrue.
I didn't expect to read about any of the 75 individuals with whom Garcia met, let alone to see Phaedra Al-Majid and me singled out in such negative terms.
Not only were the two of us referred to as "whistle-blowers" in the pejorative, but I was referred to as "unreliable" and Phaedra -- who worked on the successful Qatar bid -- was referred to as both "not credible" and "unreliable."
It was an extraordinary and unprofessional attack by one or both of the two men who preside over FIFA's Ethics Committee.
While Eckert or Garcia must have their reasons for so openly flouting standards of whistle-blower conventions, the important point is they also accepted the issues that I raised with them.
The issues that are subsequently presented in the summary report related to Australia -- and which Eckert refers to as "potentially problematic conduct" -- are amongst the matters I discussed with Garcia.
For me, this is the key point as the real issue is FIFA.
In any case, as Garcia himself has claimed, it is also easy to find errors in the summary report.
For example, in the section related to the former FIFA Executive Committee member, Mohamed Bin Hammam, it is noted that Oceania Football Confederation's (OFC) intention to support Australia's bid "was publicly reported as early as October 17, 2010."
Wrong. It was announced by the President of Australia's football association at a media conference, alongside President Sepp Blatter, in Brisbane on June 1, 2008. This is a matter of public record.
It is curious that either Garcia or Eckert got this date wrong by 28 months because it goes to the heart of issues raised earlier in the summary report, and it is also relevant to what appears to be an illogical conclusion regarding the impact of Reynald Temarii's eventual absence from taking part in the final vote.
But while the focus of the past four years has been the decisions of the Executive Committee regarding 2018/2022, FIFA has been the subject of corruption allegations for decades.
Concerned about his legacy after the 2018/2022 decisions, Blatter embarked upon successive so-called governance reforms in 2011 that left most people shaking their heads in disbelief.
First, he announced the establishment of a "Council of Wisdom" comprising Henry Kissinger, Placido Domingo and Johan Cruyff.
When it finally dawned on Blatter that this wasn't his brightest idea, he invited Transparency International and an independent Swiss governance expert, Professor Mark Pieth to advise him.
Transparency International later quit, raising questions over FIFA's commitment to reform because Pieth was being paid by the world governing body.
Professor Pieth hung in there for more than two years but could not chip-away at the cultural change required in the organization.
A high-profile anti-bribery expert who was a member of one of the new committees, Alexandra Wrage, quit in 2013 telling the Guardian: "We all focus our efforts where we can have an impact and I was not having an impact at FIFA.
"It is important the organization you are dealing with is receptive to those efforts and receptive to change.
"The independent governance committee put in a tremendous amount of work and effort putting together some fairly uncontroversial recommendations which were then knocked back," said Wrage, who is president of the non-profit international anti-bribery group Trace.
FIFA has grown to become an international commercial behemoth -- albeit an unaccountable one -- in Blatter's time and he has built the World Cup into one of the most prestigious sporting event on the planet.
But it has been at the expense of the reputation of world football and without regard for the two key stakeholders of the game -- players and fans.
FIFA is incapable of reforming itself -- and it is time for those of us who love the game and who play the game to ask sponsors, broadcasters and governments to intervene to give us a new world governing body now.
What football should have is an international governing body that has the same level of transparency and accountability that we expect of our governments, major institutions and international organizations.
An international governing body that is responsible to the many millions of people who play the game and the billions who are fans; and one that meets standards befitting an organization that will make a profit of $2 billion from the 2014 World Cup, according to Forbes.
Governments, sponsors and broadcasters should demand an interim time limited administration, led by an eminent person with a broad mandate to develop a new constitution, governance arrangements and policies and to conduct new elections -- in other words, an International Olympic Committee-like reform.
Together with Al-Majid I've been invited by British MP Damian Collins to help arrange a FIFA reform conference in Brussels in January, which I hope will produce the reforms that the IOC put into place.
Finally, another question I have been asked is whether I would do this again.
Being a whistle-blower means your life changes.
In my case, I raised my concerns internally but my employment was terminated.
It takes a toll financially and emotionally. In a relatively small country like Australia, you lose your livelihood; and, at my stage in life, the financial security you were building for your family.
But we all need to consider how we want our lives measured. We all make choices.
In the case of FIFA, you can play in the sandpit; you can leave your principles at the door; or you can be prepared to be resilient and take the consequences from those who desperately want to maintain the sinecures of the status quo.
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those that could not hear the music -Nietzsche
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 26-11-2014 15:22 PM |
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Quin.
???
Registered: Oct 2010
Posts: 33318 - Threads: 426
Location: london
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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
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.
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.
The 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.[/b]
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.
When contacted by The Independent, Uefa said: "We can confirm that Mr. Platini has never received any painting (whether by Picasso or anyone else) either from Mr. Koloskov or from any other representative of Russia 2018.
"Furthermore, we should point out that if your newspaper makes any false statement or implication that Mr. Platini received such a painting then we reserve our rights to take any necessary legal action.
"As you know, Mr. Platini has been one of the few members of the FIFA Executive Committee to publicly state who he voted for regarding the hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022.
"Mr. Platini has also fully cooperated with the recent investigation conducted by the FIFA Ethics Committee on the subject and has called for the report of Mr. Garcia to be made public. In fact, he has been, and will continue to be, completely transparent throughout."
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those that could not hear the music -Nietzsche
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