The name of the author?

Jérôme Champagne.

Once upon a time, in FIFA uniform: Robben Island, December 2009

I have always seen him as one of the top five competent officials in the whole Olympic World. But, he has two major problems: Champagne is not a member of FIFA’s gerontocracy. And he is too good. He became too influential and dangerous for all powerholders in FIFA: the President, the General Secretary, some Executives. That’s why he was fired two years ago.

After almost two years of silence (but years of influential work on different fields) he strikes back.

Read his programme, which he has sent out last weekend to all 208 National Federations. It may differ from another, a journalistic manifesto :) – The Real Road Map: investigate corruption in FIFA, what should be happening? – but it comes from inside. And it is, in general, astonishing.

Here it is, in length.

By Jérôme Champagne

WHICH FIFA FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY?

Two years ago, exactly today, I had to leave FIFA having served there during eleven years with passion, dedication, for the football associations composing it and for football which is FIFA’s raison d’être.

The circumstances of my departure (see here attached FIFA press release dated 15th January 2010) have no other value than anecdotal and now form part of my past.

In these past two years and in spite of many requests, I remained silent and have not expressed myself on FIFA, its current affairs and its situation. I limited my public comments to my football consulting activities and to what I have been privileged to implement for Palestinian football alongside local FA President, Mr. Jibril Rajoub. In 2010, I spoke on several opportunities on the meaning for Africa and the rest of the world of the first FIFA World Cup organized in Black Africa, a project I have always considered as central towards the vision of a fairer and less racist world. Similarly, I defended in some French media the reform on bi-national players and the purpose of the changes in 2003 and 2009 of the FIFA regulations on that particular topic of bi-national players unfairly blocked in their international career.

But on more general topics such as FIFA’s, I always refused since I wanted to give me the time to absorb what happened in my 11 years of intense daily involvement in world football, to give me the time and the distance from the daily activities and controversies of the game in order to reflect on the future.

For the past months, FIFA engaged itself in a reorganizing effort made necessary by the troubled times that it is facing.

In this context blossomed in my mind the idea of contributing to this debate. I do it with humility and modesty without any other ambition than to stimulate it, but with the experience of my FIFA years and of all the projects I was so proud to contribute to. I do it affirming that no one has THE truth.

However, I do it with resolve because I love the game of football too much to remain indifferent to its fate. Because I do believe that today FIFA is needed to protect and develop this sport. And because I feel more than ever that football should play its transformative role to serve a fractured, unequal and globalized world with the vision of true world governance.

Moreover, the world is my passion, having lived on four of its continents, visited more than 140 countries and merged fourteen years of diplomatic career with my years spent in football (seven in the magazine France Football, one in the Local Organizing Committee of the World Cup France 98 and eleven in FIFA).

This contribution is structured around the triptych symptoms, diagnostic, solutions. In my opinion, one should start from the analysis of the problems faced by football today in order to be able to define its central issues and only then propose possible cures.

Rather than a top-down approach, it is necessary to start from football and to be aware of these central issues to define what needs to be achieved and to determine what FIFA could become in the twenty-first century. FIFA being at the service of football, the analysis of football and of its challenges will define what FIFA should be and will be. And not the other around!

1) THE SYMPTOMS: A SEVERE CRISIS TO BE ANALYZED WITH THE PERSPECTIVE OF FOOTBALL HISTORY  

1.1) The lights are red in a lot of sectors.

A lot has been said on these problems with the media detailing them page after in the written media and during hours of TV shows and programs.

-        The list of plagues affecting the game is quite long:

. Match fixing by external persons with the cooperation of football actors (administrators, players, referees),

. Massive indebtedness of clubs in Western Europe (cumulatively 2.5 billion Euros in Italy, 3.5 in England and 4 in Spain) and in the rest of the world (South America notably),

. On all the continents, difficult economic situation for a lot of football associations and clubs, which fight often endlessly to preserve their national teams, local championships and clubs’ teams,

. Permanent temptation of doping contained by the fear of the controls,

. Permeability of football on and around the field, to the evils and plagues of our societies, violence, racism and discrimination, cheating

-        A decline of the uncertainty of the sport results accelerating in the past 15 years due to an increase of the economic and football-related income gap between the continents in spite of progress, between the countries within the same continent and of course between the clubs participating to the same competitions at national and continental levels

-        From this trend emerged the feeling that because of the huge increase of money available in football the historical methods of success in football (training, mid-term work, local roots, efforts, etc.) have been jeopardized (to sign players rather than giving an opportunity to youth; to naturalize players to strengthen the national team, to “buy” the promotion to a higher division as done by Granada 74 in Spain in 2007; to launch the idea like in England in October 2011 that relegation should be abolished, etc.) touching the very core of sport meritocracy, weakening the long-term vision for faster short-term success.

-        These evolutions are strengthened by a trend towards elitism of a minority, clubs and players, an idealized elitism by media selling dreams and neglecting the reality and the grave difficulties for other players and clubs on the one hand, and of an increasingly reduced oligarchy of “winners” on the other.

-        Moreover, a decline of amateur football is observed in our societies: more and more kids becoming sedentary and attracted by video games, disappearance of playgrounds in cities due to urbanization and traffic occupying the streets, increased disheartening of volunteers in amateur football often disgusted by the image provided by some “stars” and their own financial problems, decrease of registered players (in 2010 for the French FA, fourth successive year with a 6% decrease for players and -15% for volunteers jeopardizing the social fabrics of 18,000 amateur clubs, in UK -10% of sport practice in 2011 for 16-19 year old).

-        This is nurtured by a loss of trust around football towards its institutions and their administrators suspected and accused of mismanagement and/or corruption; towards some of the players belonging to this tiny immensely-paid minority who concentrate both the adoration of the public and the resentment for their lifestyles and the amount of money at stake.

-        This perception is reinforced by the widespread feeling that football institutions are powerless to rein in the globalization, the deregulation, a lawyerly evolution of football towards an “industry” like any other one, in a world context of a decline of solidarity mechanisms and loyalty, a strengthening of individualism and the growing absence of references and guidelines.

In brief, in the past twenty years, football has not been immune, insulated, and so different from the rest of the universal systemic trends of our world, notably the “triumph of greed” as defined by Economics Nobel Prize American recipient Joseph Stiglitz.

Football is facing a severe crisis, a crisis due both to its environment and to its own mistakes as much as to its own success and achievements since football generates passions and represents such a political and economic platform for recuperation and instrumentalization.

1.2) Nevertheless, the situation is not completely dark:

However, this crisis should be analyzed in light of football in its entirety but also from the perspective of its own history.

-        Football has already experienced similar crisis in the past and in various domains:

. Limitless politization of football at times of military and communist dictatorships manipulating and instrumentalizing football,

. Serious controversies around the introduction and developments of professional football primarily on salary (maximum wages rule in England in 1908) and statutory issues (French strike in 1972),

. Match-fixing linked to betting (in 1906 British law banning gambling, suspension of Gibson Poole, Middlesbrough Chairman in 1911 for having tried to bribe Sunderland players, “totonero” in Italy in 1980, Marseille-Valenciennes match fixed in 1993 in France, involvement of Finnish club Alianssi Vantaa and Belgian clubs La Louviere, Lierse, Saint Trond and AEC Mons in 2005),

. Secession of professional football leagues (in Colombia with the Dimayor league in 1946/49),

. Club bankruptcy and/or clubs in administration (14 English clubs in administration between 2001 and 2003, Fiorentina in 2002, SC Napoli and Leeds United in 2004, Portsmouth FC, Servette Geneva, FC Haarlem, RC Strasbourg, Real Saragosse, various lower division clubs),

. Controversies on player transfers or amendments to the Laws of the Game,

. Violence and hooliganism.

-        Football is still expanding around the world (most practiced sport in the USA, development in India, improvement of the Chinese professional league, more kids playing football than rugby in New Zealand).

-        New countries appear on the map of football success (Niger and Botswana in Africa, Venezuela in South America, Guyana and Antigua & Barbuda in the Caribbean, Jordan and Uzbekistan in Asia, Estonia and Iceland in Europe, etc.).

-        The number of matches for amateur football still remains really high (80’000, 40’000 and 30’000 per week in Germany, France and Spain respectively).

-        Football TV audiences in spite of some worries affecting some matches in competitions whose formats are too dense and long and attendances in modernized, safe and comfortable stadiums remain high.

-        Governance issues began receiving appropriate attention for match-fixing (FIFA’s Early Warning System in 2006, national scandals surfacing in various countries in 2010 and 2011 with Fenerbahce “withdrawn” from the Champions League by the Turkish federation, Germany, Zimbabwe, Finland, Greece with two relegated clubs, etc.) and for transfer issues (ban on transfers on minors, transfer management on internet and FIFA’s Transfer Matching System).

Football is facing a severe crisis, a form of “bubble” which affected other economic sectors in the past (new technologies, real estate, financial sector) even though football seems strong enough to overcome it and survive.

Nevertheless, its global governance – and thus FIFA – is at some crossroads like other global issues such as water management, international financial services, diseases neglected by the pharmaceutical industry and global warming for which the international community has not found yet strong, efficient and sustainable solutions.

In this context of consensus on the need to strengthen football world governance, the question is to determine first the challenges that football will face in the beginning of the twenty-first century. From these challenges, it will be possible to define the reforms to be implemented in order for FIFA to fulfill its role in the interest of the game.

2)  THE DIAGNOSTIC: SEVEN GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

In my views, football is today facing seven systemic issues which are all fundamental for its future.

It is possible to believe – and some do – that the principles of football, basically for 150 years since the foundation in 1863 of The Football Association in England must be abandoned. One can along the same lines think that twenty-first century football must speed up its evolution towards a pure entertainment industry, closed leagues, the emergence of a uni-polar system around one or two big leagues becoming the global league broadcast everywhere in the world through TV and once in a while exported to the rest of the world through “exhibition matches” based on purely merchandizing strategies! Towards a football NBA!

Personally I refuse this because football is much more than that. But let’s have a look at these seven central governance challenges.

2.1) Amateur football and professional football

Football grew in history thanks to the link between the 2, this link being the key of its success:

-        The first one provides the young talents who replace the older generations of players and form a football pyramid whose base should be the largest possible.

-        The second one offers the supreme quality of the game for the top talents, the entertainment of its competitions and the role models motivating the future generations of players

-        This pyramid is built on some key elements and links between the 2, (a) – the common management of national football, amateur AND professional, under the roof of the FAs, (b) – the existence of financial solidarity from the top to the bottom symbolized by the popular success of the FA cups where all clubs whichever they are would meet in the celebration of the game.

But this balance is threatened:

-        The phenomenal economic success of professional football in the past twenty years, which is very good for football in general, has nevertheless generated secessionist ambitions in some professional leagues – justified at times to modernize football management by “traditional” FAs but today motivated by other hidden agendas – and a strengthening of its “political” control within the FAs and their executive bodies (for ex. the 2011 reform in the French FA with an increase from 25 to 37% of the votes by professional football representatives in the general assembly, influence of the Premier League in the Board of the English FA, federations such as in Costa Rica with the 12 Primera clubs having 50% of the votes).

-        In all FAs, negotiations on financial contributions to amateur football are tougher and more and more difficult.

-        Similarly one can observe an increased pressure on  football from lower divisions to “limit” the risks for professional football by:

. Questioning the regulations “protecting the smaller clubs” (e.g. in the French FA Cup for the home-ground advantage for lower division clubs facing L1 clubs),

. Separating the clubs in various continental divisions (in Asia with three divisions for inter-clubs competitions with the AFC Champions League, AFC Cup and AFC President’s Cup

. Suppressing on all continents the continental Cup Winners’ Cup due to a supposed difficulty to market them,

. Questioning the very principle of promotion-relegation and of open leagues,

. Making sure that the “serious” part of the competitions will concentrate the “big” ones by modifying their formats (for ex. in Germany, in Belgium, in Kenya among others, less automatic relegations at the end of the season and play-offs for the promotion, complicated calculations in Argentina).

A lot was done, notably by FIFA, in the past years to preserve this balance:

-        Reorganization of the football associations with a rebalancing in favor of top clubs when they were marginalized and to enable the autonomy of the well-organized professional leagues (e.g. Senegal, Kenya with 3 million dollars per year in TV rights and +36% for gate receipts in 2011) but also to protect the influence of amateur football (for ex. in Peru)

-        Strict enforcement of Art. 18 of the FIFA statutes both for the autonomy of the leagues and the respect by the latter of the central authority of the associations

-        Introduction in the FIFA statutes of the principle of promotion-relegation after the Granada 74 case while respecting the two existing “closed leagues” among the 208 federations (USA, Australia),

-        Support to grassroots program, etc.

2.2) Club football and national team football

Since the oldest time of football and the 1872 Scotland-England match, football grew in history on these two legs:

-        Rhythm of the annual  calendar based on the alternation of leagues, continentals cups and national team matches during the season allowing a diversity of emotions for the fans and of sport objectives for the players.

-        Moreover, in some countries, football developed more thanks to club football while it was the opposite in others due to various factors linked to the history of the country and the circumstances of football success (in France Saint Etienne having preceded the glorious French national team period 1984-2006 or in Spain at the top level with its clubs and young players but having to wait until 2008 and 2010 for the consecration of the Roja).

-        Obviously national team football benefits from the efforts by clubs to train and develop talents and the release of their players.

-        The other way around, club football benefits, including commercially, from the international exposure and increased value of their players as well as the impact on the national leagues of successful performance of the national teams in big competitions such as the World Cup, the African Cup of Nations and the European Championships.

This balance even though imperfect in the past, is threatened today:

-        Due to the pressure on the “big clubs” under considerable economic constraints, but also to the increasing disconnection between them and the national teams because of the club owners (10 out of 20 English Premier League clubs owned by non-English persons), of their players and of the indifference to the foreign national teams when the players of these clubs come from abroad.

-        Due also – it has to be acknowledged – to football associations which believed that they could ignore the concerns of the clubs releasing their players (lack of insurance and medical attention for the players in case of injuries, friendly matches organized in remote countries in the middle of the season, lack of dialogue between national team coaches and clubs, etc.).

-        Due finally to changes to the competitions format by an expansion by the confederations of the qualifying formula to the competitions in particular when TV sales have been centralized.

Nevertheless, a lot has been achieved in the past ten years:

-        Introduction in 2002 by FIFA of an international calendar, which was not existing at all before,

-        Regular reforms of the initial (Copa America every 4 years instead of every two years, cancellation of the friendly match date of March-April, increase of double dates to reduce the number of trips by players, etc.),

-        Substantial financial contribution by FIFA to the clubs from the World Cup funds starting in 2010,

-        Establishment of sanctions on football associations and players returning late to their clubs

But there is a widespread feeling of a growing mutual misunderstanding between clubs and football associations around these issues, which are so important for the future of football

2.3) European football and football in the rest of the world

The balance of power within international football followed both the evolutions of the game and the evolutions of the world:

-        In the nineteenth century, football was regulated by Europeans in fact British, exported by Europeans (via the colonization and via British and non-British migrations such as engineers’ for railways, shipyards for Athletic Bilbao, steel industry for Shakhtar Donetsk), with FIFA created in 1904 by Europeans (Argentina affiliated in 1912 as the first non-European association).

-        Then a bipolar football world emerged with South America (and Latin America with Mexico) with the creation of CONMEBOL in 1916 and the Copa America in 1917, the wealth of South America, which hosted the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, the long domination of Brazil 1958-1970 and the format of the Intercontinental Cup limited to two continents only.

-        From the 1960s on, a finally-independent Africa claims for its fair place in world football with:

. Football as a symbol for their struggles (Namdi Azikiwe in Nigeria as soon as the 40’s, the FLN team 1958-1962 in the middle of the colonial war in Algeria, the Makana FA founded in 1969 on Robben Island by the anti-Apartheid Freedom Fighters),

. This struggle also took place within the football institutions where Africa conquered its place step by step (in 1966 boycott of the World Cup because Africa did not obtain a direct entry to the final phase, decisive role for President Havelange’s election in 1974, launch of development programs at the end of the 70’s to the large benefit of the continent, again decisive role in the FIFA elections 1998 and 2002 in support of the winner, first World Cup in Africa in 2010),

. A growing sport success (first World Cup quarterfinalist in 1990, Gold medals at the Olympic Games 1996 and 2000, massive presence of African talents in European leagues but also in the rest of the world) but still a lack of development of a largely extraverted African football (talents abroad and economic problems for the local championships).

-        The other evolutions of our world were reflected in football’s with the emergence of the other continents in the Far East (Japan and the two Koreas in particular the North in 1966, and then the 2002 World Cup), in the Arab world in two phases (1^st in the1970/80’s and the second more recently since 2000 with heavy investments from this region in European football, Manchester City, Paris SG, Al-Jazeera TV), in North America (USA World Cup in 1994 and success of the MLS with in 2011 an average attendance of 17’800 higher than the NBA and the NHL).

But this evolution towards a multi-polar football was not flawless nor without conflict with a particular element, a sport and economic domination from Western Europe and resolute efforts by football structures from other countries and continents to develop while being at the same time victims and beneficiaries of this hegemony.

The latter is a multi-faceted hegemony:

-        In political terms, by controlling eight of the 24 FIFA Executive Committee seats, European football remains at the center of any decision.

-        In sport terms, it reinforces the world economic inequalities by various elements and consequences:

. Attraction to Europe of the best players from all continents,

. Emptying the local leagues from their best players transforming them – except a few – in endangered competitions (e.g. in Cameroon decline from a period when stadiums were sold out for the Yaounde derby match Canon-Tonnerre),

. Unrestricted competition by European leagues images broadcasts endangering the very existence of these local leagues (e.g. the Hong Kong professional league in spite of being the oldest Asian league with a foundation in 1908 became semi-pro at the end of the twentieth century with the arrival of satellite TV).

-        In terms of football regulations, their Eurocentric dimension favors European football regarding the FIFA international calendar established according to European leagues ignoring climatic constraints on other continents, regarding the transfer regulations influenced by EU law, etc.

-        In economic terms with increasing gaps and inequalities in football wealth distribution with the result of a financial concentration to benefit a very limited number of big clubs and leagues.

Two concrete examples are very revealing:

-        The international TV rights of the English Premier League – by the way a very exciting competition – reach £1.4 billion for the period 2010-2013 (the double of the period 2007-2010) without any economic benefit for the local football of the 212 countries and territories where it is broadcast. Moreover, it does not impose abroad the same – justified – restrictions existing in England (no match live at 3pm on Saturdays to keep the sold-out stadiums) but broadcasts 4 or 5 matches live every weekend abroad imposing contortions  on local leagues when establishing their own fixtures,

For ex. recently, on 23 October 2011, the Rwandese federation was compelled to postpone by one hour the kick-off time of the big local derby match APR-Rayon and to show some images of Manchester United-Manchester City on Kigali Amahoro stadium screens in order to attract fans!

-        In Peru – but the situation is similar in many other countries -, the local professional league is on pay-TV, which limits its access to the wider Peruvian population for economic reasons (a little less than a million households, i.e. more or less 5 of the 35 million Peruvians) while the European Champions League having generated so much money elsewhere, can be broadcast in Peru in free-to-air TV.

As a consequence, a 10-year old Peruvian boy/girl from a modest family will see more European football than the local one!

Clearly, world football is facing a situation characterized by a severe lack of balance in sport, economic and even cultural terms due to the oligopolistic domination of the football images coming from 2-3 European leagues, on world TV screens.

Beyond these 2-3 Western European leagues and because this phenomena is identical in other West- and East-European countries, a vicious circle has been established: less talents in local leagues, less spectators and thus less income, departure of the best and also mid-quality players in great quantity, necessity to watch the European leagues on TV to follow the players transferred to Europe (Western Europe?), thus less income for the local TV rights, tapping of the local markets through the merchandizing and exhibition tours of these big clubs (notably in Asia).

In front of this systemic trend, FIFA has tried to correct the situation by:

-        A 1/3 of its budget – coming up to 95% from the World Cup rights – earmarked for development programs (Goal, Win in Africa with Africa, FAP, etc.) which made a real difference on the ground in spite of what can be said by their critics,

-        A better representation of the other continents in world competitions,

-        The creation of the Club World Cup to give a chance to all continental champions after years of entrenched opposition,

-        Multiple decisions in regulatory terms to try to compensate the above-described inequalities:

. In 2002 5%-solidarity mechanisms on transfers and training compensation calculated on costs in arrival countries and not anymore on departing countries for players transferred to Europe,

. In 2007 ban on transfers of minors,

. In 2003 and 2009 amendment for bi-national players to strengthen national teams,

. In 2009 introduction of the 5-year residency clause after 18 years of age to limit the naturalizations.

But it is clear that these efforts remained insufficient to compensate the growth of inequalities in football.

2.4) Clubs and players

The maxim makes common-sense: without players, there is no football but without clubs, there is no match, no championship, not even a football association!

This club-player relationship has always been a permanent source of tensions in the history of the game but became more complex in the past years:

-        The evolution is 180 degrees between the era when players were contractually tied to the clubs for all their career, and the situation nowadays dominated by a fury of transfers, rarely-completed contracts until their expiration date, infinite bargaining between clubs and clubs, clubs and players, enticement of players away from their clubs and approach both ways in violation of the FIFA regulations and even the basic rules of courtesy,

-        The issue of the players’ salaries allegedly too high today has always been a hot topic in football but became central in a period of economic crisis with the emergence of notions such as the salary cap (discussed in Europe, in Australia for the A-League) to emulate the North-American closed leagues (for example the NBA) but often circumvented when decided (in the MLS).

-        A feeling in the public opinion that football is disconnected from today’s reality because of very high salaries, idealized life-styles and a glamorous star-system around top players. This is unfair since no one questions singers’ and movie stars’ income, or their lifestyles whose private and public excesses go way beyond footballers’!

In that matter, it is in my views essential to overcome stereotypes in order to avoid judging global issues in light of the situation of a very tiny minority of stars. Of course, players share the responsibility due to the behavior of a few among them (at a time Ortega in Fenerbahce, the French players during the South African World Cup in 2010, and Tevez in Manchester City in 2011) and to their “objective complicity” with club managers to increase salaries.

For nearly all the players in the world but also in Europe, their situation is dominated by:

-        Short careers and potentially brutally-interrupted for injuries,

-        One-sided contracts in favor of the clubs, or for a one-year period, and even without any contract at all,

-        Fast growing unemployment of players (90% of players in Ireland),

-        Salaries for 99% of the players representing a very small percentage of the salaries – largely deserved by the way – of immense players such as Messi and Ronaldo,

-        More and more players are not paid (e.g. Estela Amadora in Portugal, Cork City in Ireland two seasons ago, Spain’s Rayo Vallecano in 2010/11, more recently FC Karlovac in Croatia’s first division just to name a few), while some pretend – wrongly in my opinion – that the only solution be a salary cap.

-        Violations of players’ elementary rights (passports withdrawn upon arrival in the country, firing in the middle of the season, harassment tactics to impose salary reductions or severance of the contracts, physical pressure in extreme cases),

-        Difficulty to defend their rights.

The situation is a worldwide phenomena observed on all continents beyond the myths; increasing problems in Eastern Europe but positive changes in other continents (decisions against indebted clubs in Peru and Colombia, well-managed clubs in Africa, such as TP Mazembe in DR Congo).

With the vision that football cannot develop today without a fair and sound balance between clubs and players, important measures were taken by FIFA:

-        In 2003 first-ever worldwide “sport” labor tribunal (Dispute Resolution Chamber) with equal representation of clubs and players, employers and employees,

-        Decisions to have a minimum standard requirements for contracts, national dispute resolution chambers,

-        At the same time dialogue with clubs: FIFA club forum in 2004, FIFA Task-Force for the good of the game in 2005-2007, FIFA Club football committee in 2009,

-        Dialogue with the players with the FIFA-FIFPro agreement signed on 2 November 2006.

2.5) Relationship of football with money between the need of it and the dangers of its excesses

From a historical perspective, the following facts have to be kept in mind:

-        There was a time when in FIFA and elsewhere there was little or no money in football and even a time when football had to pay to be shown on TV screens.

-        This lack of funds is still central in the huge majority of countries and football associations around the world in spite of some progress (for ex. in Africa emerging professional leagues in Kenya, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Namibia supported by the private sector),

-        Money is more than ever the sinews of war because it is needed (a) – to sustain the clubs and the FAs, (b) – to finance solidarity mechanism and development programs and (c) – and it is a new trend, to create a return to club owners and stakeholders

Regarding this issue, it is necessary to underline – and in the interest of all – how important it is for the sport and economic development of football that the image of the sport and the image of its governing bodies be unstained.

Nevertheless this influx of money – so welcome – amplified a lot of problems which had already appeared in the past (corruption, match-fixing, betting) but also generated new phenomena:

-        Facing the financial stakes, the sporting risk and the uncertainty of the result are questioned or reduced  in order to protect the heavy investments in today’ s football:

. Through competition formats which, due to the difficulty to establish closed leagues, guarantee as much as possible to the “big” clubs to reach the more-remunerating final phases of these competitions (754 million Euros for the 32 clubs qualified to the group phase of the Champions League),

. Through “transferring” eliminated clubs to other competitions (for ex. to the Europa League for the clubs eliminated in play-offs in August and finishing in December 3^rd in the group phase of the Champions League),

Let’s take note that four of the six finalists positions in the three last editions of the Europa League were occupied by clubs eliminated from the Champions League thus strengthening “big” clubs domination (Shakhtar Donetsk winner and Werder Bremen finalist in 2009 after a 3^rd place in the group phase of the Champions League 2008/09, Atletico Madrid winner in 2010 after a play-off elimination in the Champions League 2009/10, Braga finalist in 2011 after a 3^rd place in the group phase of the Champions League 2010/11).

. Through financial distribution mechanism favoring these so-called “big clubs” when the rights are centrally marketed and sold:

a)     – On the basis of the market, for ex. with the “market pool” criteria in the European Champions League with the consequence that in 2010/11 the quarterfinalist Ukrainian club Shaktar Donetsk earned only two-thirds of the share of Bayern Munich eliminated in the previous round, and only half of Chelsea’s even though the London club was at the same level of the competition,

b)     – On the basis of a so-called “club fame”, for example in the French League with the “celebrity index” which made that in 2010/11 Olympique Marseille et Olympique Lyon received more money than Lille who clinched the French champion title,

c)     – On the basis of a “TV audience” ranking representing 22% and 25% of the TV rights in England and Italy respectively,

. Through very important inequalities when the rights are sold individually by the clubs as in Spain where Real Madrid and FC Barcelona gather 35% of the total TV income, generating temptations to do the same in other countries among “big clubs” (in November 2011 statement by Liverpool FC Managing Director suggesting individual selling of the English Premier League international TV rights)

. Through an increasing income gap with lower professional divisions – when they exist in a football association -, (in 2012 in England, decrease by 26% of the TV rights of the Football League for the period 2012-2014 comparing to 2009-2011, hardened negotiations on “relegation” financial “parachutes”, etc.) making promotion-relegation mechanisms more difficult for the concerned clubs.

-        Because of these inequalities, a decline of the competitiveness of the competitions both at national and continental levels can be observed:

. At national level, titles are monopolized by a limited number of clubs: England with 3 clubs having clinched 18 of the 19 Premier League titles since 1993, Germany with Bayern with 9 of the last 15, and similar concentrations in Portugal (FC Porto with 7 of the 10 last titles), Scotland (all titles clinched by Rangers FC and Celtic with only one other club, Hearts, having occupied in 2006 the 2^nd position since the creation of the SPL in 1998) and Spain (3 titles only of 15 having escaped from Barca and Real Madrid),

. At Champions League qualification level, through a mechanical effect, the national domination of the same clubs generates a decline of the diversity of the clubs qualified to the richest club competition, reinforcing thus a “virtuous circle” for the wealthiest clubs preserving their national success, and a phenomena observed of course in Europe but also appearing on other continents (for example the Esperance in Tunisia) due to the increase of the TV rights of these competitions and the well-prized qualification to the FIFA Club World Cup.

For example, in England, since the qualification to the Champions League 2005-2006 of Everton ranked 4^th in the Premier League 2004/05, all the qualifications sports were monopolized by the “big four” (Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool) until Tottenham (UCL 2010/11) and Manchester City (UCL 2011/12) broke the monopoly.

. At continental level itself in Europe with a total of 33 of 40 semifinalists positions in the ten past years of the Champions League occupied (with the derived income) by the clubs of three countries only (England 15, Spain 11 and Italy 7), a concentration that the recent qualifications of FC Copenhagen and APOEL Nicosia to the Champions league 1/8 of finals 2010/11 and 2011/12, affect marginally only, like the fig leaf not hiding a lot.

-        Coming with these sporting and financial inequalities, emerges, as a cause and a consequence at the same time, a concentration of the best players among a limited number of the wealthiest clubs, which develop a policy of acquisition as a security of the best young talents, often to retain them from signing in competing clubs, and are even able to impose on lower division clubs a decrease of the training fees (in England last October with the “agreement” by the Football League to a demand of the Premier League).

This elitist trend at club football level is observed by all, felt as dangerous by the majority and supported by some. The category of the latter gathers those who already benefit from it and those who aspire to join this group by defending even more unequal financial distribution mechanisms at national level because, according to them, this would enable better competitiveness at European level even though the price to pay is the decline of national championships and leagues.

Finally, others have been active for years to set up a truly European league to substitute the current competitions.

In this never-ending stop-gap evolution, the trend leads to a devaluation of national leagues because regular qualifications to the Champions League became more important than a national title (six of the fourteen Champions League winners without having been the national champion during the previous season), but also the devaluation of other competitions – including the World Cup according to some – since the best players of the world are now concentrated in eight clubs playing the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

In this context of growing inequalities within world football, it is widely felt that the only global redistributive system – the income of the World Cup redistributed by FIFA – is not ample enough to correct these profound trends beyond a marginal impact.

2.6) Autonomy of football and dialogue with its environment, specificity and ordinary justice

Let’s try to approach this issue, like all the others, beyond the caricature:

-        It is an illusion for the Olympic and sport movement to pretend that sport and politics have been separated when so many contradicting facts prove the opposite:

. The foundations of sport and its ideology have been influenced at the origin by politics (for example to train stronger citizens) and an aristocratic vision of society (myth of the amateur sportsman existing during decades within Olympics).

. Decisions on hosting the big competitions fully integrate political strategies of heads of state and governments from Uruguay in 1930, to the votes for 2018 and 2022 for Russia and Qatar, wand symbiotic relations with decision-makers for these competitions,

. Sport institutions depend on public funding to build the stadiums necessary for these competitions.

. The presence of political leaders in the bodies of the various sport institutions has been and remains important.

. Pressuring methods on sport entities available to political authorities have diversified: financing the national team, control on stadiums, governmental responsibilities inherited from pre-democratic and totalitarian regimes (in Spain and France sport legal situation inherited from Franco’s and Petain’s regimes), abuse of the law against the federations, interference in their management, etc.

-        Moreover, the concept of the autonomy has regularly been instrumentalized to hide unethical and sometimes illegal behavior of sport administrators from external assessment.

-        On the other hand, those denying the need of this sport autonomy are precisely the same persons trying to seize sport for themselves for the benefit of their personal, political ambitions, disguising these ambitions behind ethical, transparency and financial accountability concerns.

-        Similarly it can be observed that most of the opponents to the lex sportiva and to sport justice based on principles (constitutional rights, superiority of ordinary justice) are precisely those whose sport behavior does not match sport ethics. Having recourse to ordinary justice has no other purpose to gain time due to the slowness of ordinary justice, to block competitions they are supposed to join by multiplying appeals, to attract attention of media and public opinion on the topic of “victim vs. the nasty sport institutions” which suddenly become “associations registered under Swiss private law” (i.e. in the past years cases of Juventus FC, the swimmer David Meca-Medina, FC Sion, etc.).

Where do we stand for football in the twenty-first century?

-        Should we abandon the notions of autonomy for football and of the independence of the federations as defined at article 17 of the FIFA statutes? And the defense of the autonomy by FIFA? Of course no.

-        But does this autonomy mean that it prevents any dialogue, any space of collaboration with governmental authorities? Here again, of course no.

-        And does this autonomy represent a “blank check” enabling the sport institutions to behave erratically, to violate defense rights in sport justice process, to violate their own statutes arbitrarily, etc.? Once again of course no.

This autonomy for football is more necessary than ever for multiple reasons:

-        Football must remain neutral politically and from partisanship, internationally and nationally. Football is not from the right or the left, not conservative, nor progressive, because since football cannot belong to any one, it should remain the sport of the whole people

-        The time of football and of its management dominated by its annual and quadrennial rhythm of its competitions, are not compatible with the time of its environment, politics, ordinary justice and short-term objectives.

-        For the last twenty years, football in particular (and sport in general) has been experiencing one of the most serious interferences of its history due to the policy of the European Union institutions to use football to serve their integration, deregulation and free-trade vision, to mould it in a federal frame denying national realities and sport competences (for ex. repeated attempts by the European Commission to have the EU flag at the Olympic Games and on jerseys), and even transforming football as a vehicle of the conflicts among European institutions (Commission vs. the member-states) for political pre-eminence.

Moreover today, European law and jurisprudence cases place sporting rules under the authority of EU law as soon as these rules have economic consequences (2006 Meca-Medina decision). Now, nearly all sporting rules have economic consequences (from a goal cancelled for off-side to the doping suspension of a player).

Finally considering Western European hegemony on football, this EU law “dictatorship” expanded to the whole world football via the obligation upon FIFA, UEFA and EU member-states football federations to respect it.

-        The autonomy should be completed by a trustful and transparent dialogue with external entities since it is a necessity for football:

. Sport in schools curriculum,

. Legal and tax environment positive for sport professional and amateur activities,

. Building of sport facilities and stadiums,

. Cooperation in the fight against plagues and criminal activities surrounding sport (corruption, doping, racism, trafficking of minors, etc.)

-        Last but not least, the autonomy of sport cannot be a “blank check” given to sport institutions which have to deserve it. The autonomy cannot merely be a return to the “pre-Bosman” unilateral methods of the past.

It is the recognition that the specificity of sport exists as it is included – after a long sport-political battle against the objections from the European Commission itself – at article 165 of the Lisbon Treaty. But this specificity is not an exemption from the law, neither an exception (for ex. for cultural goods), nor a regression for the rights (in particular for the employees in football, the players) but contrary to that the definition – negotiated with football stakeholders – of all topics which make and justify that football is not an activity like any other one.

2.7) Globalization, identity and imbalances

Like the rest of the world and other human activities, football has been experiencing in the last twenty years a dangerous cocktail of deregulation, globalization in a context of systemic research of legal, tax, regulatory and judicial loopholes to escape for the football regulations (sporting rules but also on topics such as transfers, club ownership, abuse of fiscal paradises, off-shore and screen companies, etc.).

These changes have produced some winners, a few, and a lot of losers, in particular when the internationalization of club squads is considered:

-        The balance between training the local talents and resorting to the worldwide market of players disappeared, when the “policy of the checkbook” replaces the long-term effort through youth academies so strongly – and exceptionally – symbolized today by the FC Barcelona, winner of the 2011 Club World Cup with nine players of the starting eleven from the club’s youth academy!

The current crisis may, however, encourage some clubs to revert to training programs but this “correction” is likely to have a marginal impact only (relegated clubs, clubs in administration and clubs which decidedly position their future and their economic model as “training clubs” feeding the upper echelon, etc.).

-        The internationalization of players (43.5% of the regularly-fielded players of the top 5 West-European leagues according to the Professional Football Players’ Observatory) developed in contrast with the social reality (for ex. an average 7% of the EU population is not a citizen of the country of residence) revealing a distortion of football labor market.

-        This internationalization is combined with a concentration of the top players among a more and more limited number of clubs and leagues which are obviously the wealthiest for ex. in England (more than 55% of foreign players).

England personifies this evolution:

. 27 February 1999, last match of a Premier League club with 11 English players (Aston Villa),

. 26 December 1999, first match of a Premier League club without any English player in the starting 11 (Chelsea),

. 14 February 2005, first match of a Premier League club without any English player on the 16 players’ list (starting players and substitutes, Arsenal),

. 31 December 2009, first match of the Premier League without any English player in both teams at the beginning of the match (Portsmouth-Arsenal until the 90^th and the substitution of Michael Brown for Portsmouth).

-        The consequences of this concentration on Europe can be seen with the extraversion of football in African and South American countries whose international players play for European clubs, except a few, to the detriment of the sustainability and the development of the local leagues.

-        Consequences are also felt on football and on the national teams of importing countries and leagues and even on some positions of the field of play (for ex. controversies around the goalkeepers of the English national team and the fact that the majority of Premier League clubs field foreign goalkeepers).

-        The consequences of this “foot drain” are criminal as well (child trafficking, tax evasion, embezzlement, etc.).

But more largely, this trend jeopardizes a central element of sport success (training over money, the mid-term over the short-term) and threatens the belief in sport ethics.

-        Is it the acclaimed success for Portuguese football when three of its clubs (FC Porto, Benfica and Sporting Braga) reach the semifinals of the Europa League 2010/11 while only 7 of the 33 fielded players are eligible to the national team?

-        Is it a success for Cypriot football to see APOEL Nicosia qualify to the group phase and the 1/8 of final of the Champions League with a maximum of three Cypriot players and when the local championship has the highest percentage in Europe of non-eligible players to the national team (72%)?

-        Is it confirm to the spirit of the competitions, like the two preceding cases, when this partially “artificial” success induces sped-up progressions in the ranking of the UEFA “association coefficient” decisive for the number of spots, for the entry in the competitions in the various qualifying rounds, and thus additional financial income?

-        The same issue exists on other continents when the Qatari club of Al-Sadd clinches the Asian Champions League title 2011 with only one player born in Qatar and six naturalized players to comply with the AFC rule of four foreign players maximum (3 out of Asia and one from Asia)?

-        – Is it in line with sport ethics when federations (in Gulf states and Qatar again, in Africa, Mauritania and others, including for women’s football) obtain fast naturalizations from the public authorities to improve the sport performance, the chances to qualify and their world ranking?

By definition and due to its history, club football has always been characterized by mix and diversity of origins. And this is good. But today, it is not about this at all but merely the economic and financial concentration to win at any cost…

In the past years some measures were taken:

-        Transfer ban for players under 18 years of age,

-        Restrictions on the impact of naturalizations on sport eligibility (in 2009 approval of the 5-year residency after 18 years clause) to protect football from trends observed in other sports (New Zealanders in rugby national teams, and Chinese athletes for table-tennis, etc.),

-        Limits decided by some federations on the number of foreign players authorized to play in their championships (Russia, Singapore, Ukraine) and even for some particular positions on the field (no foreign goalkeeper in the Saudi league), and even introduction of the clause of the “first license” of the player to circumvent European rules (Luxembourg),

-        Leading role in the debate on “6+5” and its various formulas (“home-born” players, 9+9) torpedoed by a combination of the European Commission and some football stakeholders.

But what impacts football and what football is suffering from, is a lot larger than the “simple” issue of players which is only the consequence rather than the cause of the problems football is currently facing.

While observing the current world financial crisis, it is clear that it is combined by tectonic changes jeopardizing key elements of our communities:

. Explosion of inequalities (1% of Americans owning 23% of the national wealth against only 10% en 1980, in France the wealth owned by the 10% most privileged represent 35 times the 50% less privileged’ s),

. Growing tolerance to social discriminations,

. Increased focus on individual rights over common interests and purposes,

. Return of the privileges in parallel of a dismantling of solidarity mechanisms,

. Decline of the social fabrics (“99% vs. 1%”).

In face of this crisis of a rudderless globalization without governance, states lose ground to the markets and the stock exchanges.

But take this sentence and replace the words “states”, “markets” and stock exchanges” by “federations”, “leagues” and “clubs” respectively, the similarity is even more striking.

Like today’s world deregulated globalization, the current situation of football is presented as a ineluctable trend that no one, not even FIFA, can redress due to the deep intertwining of legal clauses, economic needs and football market constraints.

The current situation is supposedly irreversible and the wild laissez-faire globalization is the unavoidable horizon for twenty-first century football. In this perspective, FIFA and national federations alike would only remain with the power to marginally correct some of the problems but not to touch the core and the roots of the problems.

It is not my purpose here to simplify the debate but on the contrary to underline the essential difference existing between the universalization of football in solidarity, respect given to all, with the search of a development as harmonious as possible for all, and the current globalization, wild to benefit only a few!

Can we continue like that in football as the French economist Pierre Rosanvallon put it for the world economy: “There is a nearly total unanimity to consider that the current inequalities are unsustainable but at the same time the mechanisms producing these inequalities are globally accepted”?

x     x     x

 These seven football governance challenges for the twenty-first century are important, complex and difficult to manage, but they clearly demonstrate that ONLY a strong governance structure at world level is capable to deal with them in order to preserve the nature of sport and its universality.

3)   THE CURE: ELEVEN CONCRETE PROPOSALS

To face these challenges, FIFA is more necessary than ever but this is also why it needs a reform.

With this logic in mind, it could be useful to remember the FIFA provisional statutes adopted on twenty-first May 1904 upon its foundation and to review the objectives given to FIFA at that time:

-        FIFA is a federation of federations (even though the FC Madrid, later named Real Madrid, was representing Spanish football in absence of a federation which was set up only later) which agree to “mutually and exclusively recognize each other”.

-        It is already in charge of issues related to clubs and players (prohibition to play “simultaneously” in two different federations), to their transfers and to their disciplinary issues (mutual recognition of disciplinary suspensions).

-        It is stressed that matches should be played according to the IFAB Laws of the Game.

-        By the article 9 of these provisional statutes, FIFA receives the exclusivity of the organization of an “inter-national competition”.

In fact, nearly 108 years later, nothing has really changed and the objectives remain the same. In brief, if FIFA would not exist in 2012, it would have to be invented and created.

But considering the above-described challenges, which are the measures necessary for FIFA to remain relevant in the twenty-first century? For FIFA to act for the good of the game and of the world because at the end of the day, it is what FIFA is about, and only that. Rather than serving personal ambitions or rivalries between institutions.

Please find hereunder eleven concrete proposals which are not ranked according to their importance or their calendar of implementation. In fact, it is from a package of measures that sustainable solutions will surface.

3.1) Revive the democratic debate within football pyramid

This proposal has the following purpose:

-        To stimulate debates in the FIFA Congress (e.g. organization on two full working days, program with working groups and reports in plenary session, enlarge the capacity to present topics and motions, additional time left for debates beyond the statutory topics, etc.),

-        To reinforce the role of the FIFA Committees whose decisions are today purely consultative

-        To set up mechanisms to consult the federations and to involve them in decisions between the congresses through the use of new technologies (possibility for the President and the Executive Committee to present “questions”, to establish voting consultations on various subjects, etc.),

-        To publish agendas and minutes of FIFA committees meetings.

To re-launch the debate within the pyramid is really necessary since so many fundamental and structural issues regarding the future of the game are of utmost importance (for ex. and among others the international calendar whose alleged reform is said to be prepared without a large and previous consultation of the federations by football “political” authorities). To read in the media the existence of such projects prepared by the football techno-structure or by non-elected committees, does not reinforce the feeling of belonging and democracy within an organization.

Along the same line, topics such as players’ insurance for international duties, refereeing and the use of new technologies, etc., could easily become the focus of a wide and encompassing consultation process launched by FIFA.

3.2) Increase even more development programs with new solidarity mechanisms

This proposal includes several facets:

-        To recognize that today’s inequalities in football jeopardize its very future and that their correction or at least their reduction is a strategic objective,

-        To increase even further FIFA’s development programs based on FIFA’s healthy financial reserves, for example with a worldwide ambitious program of artificial fields in less favored countries and areas with lower costs thanks to scale reduction,

-        To establish a special program reserved for the less well-off

In fact, all FIFA current development programs (Goal, FAP, “Win in…”) benefit all without any distinction according to the economic and financial situation. If it is normal that all federations receive their share of FIFA income, FIFA cannot support the same way a wealthy federation from Europe, the Gulf or Far-East, than less favored federations from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Oceania and even Eastern Europe.

It seems thus indispensable to individualize programs and to increase the financial support to less favored federations, leagues, clubs, in order to enable them to both speed up the establishment of professional leagues and sustain the adjustments to new regulations and criteria induced by professionalism. For ex. How is it possible to request a first division club in Africa or elsewhere to open a youth academy when lack of finances makes salary payment and transportation logistics difficult and irregular?

-        To reinforce transparency and tracking of financial assistance from FIFA and from football in general (assistance from other football institutions, public funding, etc.).

-        To launch a global discussion on that topic with a task-force grouping football institutions under the leadership of FIFA (UEFA and other confederations, football associations, Premier League and other European Leagues broadcast internationally) with some objectives:

. Establishment of a “World Higher Council for football development” under the auspices of FIFA grouping the organizers of major contributing competitions (confederations, federations leagues) and representatives of benefitting federations for the definition of strategies and development programs with decision-making and control power by the contributors,

. Establishment of a “World Fund” managed by the “Higher Council” and of a contribution based on a percentage of the TV rights sold internationally, with a “return” country per country to “compensate” and strengthen local football,

. Possibility to receive public and private funding to build infrastructures (e.g. similarly to the 2008 program to build the 1^st Palestinian stadium meeting international standards),

. Assistance to football associations applying for third party development grants,

. Responsibility given to this “Higher Council” to ensure the coordination of development programs which multiply today according to donators’ political decisions,

. Strict control on the disbursement of these funds to ensure tracking and total transparency.

-        To add on this “Higher Council” ‘s agenda on financial redistribution, the topic of regulations in order to sustain a better-balanced world football (for example reinforced protection of training clubs and exporting countries).

3.3) Involve leagues, clubs and players in the decision-making process

The organization modalities have evolved for a vertical mode of authority (dictatorships, religions, militarism, etc.) towards a horizontal form induced by the increase of individualism, interest or influence groups, IT explosion based on networks, democratic aspirations before the approval of collective decisions, etc.

It is obvious that considering the evolution of football, to combine this verticality of the decisions (to avoid becoming a tooth-less and rudderless structure) and the horizontality of participation and consultation (to make sure measures are not rejected) is necessary.

Associating clubs/leagues on the one hand and players on the other would enable regulatory decisions to be better conceived because they would be more debated with more input, and better accepted because their approval would be based on inclusion:

-        To implement fully of the FIFA-FIFPro agreement signed in November 2006  including on the definition of what is specific in football in comparison of ordinary law,

-        To encourage the creation of a “world federation of clubs/leagues” to be pyramidal, democratic and really representative to ensure that the voice of the clubs of all countries (a rough total of 3’000 top-division clubs in the 208 federations) and not only 201 European clubs, their concerns and their proposals could be heard at FIFA level but also with continental branches (e.g. FIF-Clubs/Leagues Africa for topics related to CAF), considering that at national level, leagues and/or professional club associations already exist for the dialogue with the federations.

-        To create two seats in the FIFA Executive Committee for the presidents of the future FIF-Clubs/Leagues and of current FIFPro,

-        To decide the presence of players’ representatives in general assemblies and executive committees of the 208 federations, and of representatives of professional leagues in federal structures to recognize the central role played by their competitions, and to support FIFPro’s expansion to all countries where it is not yet implanted,

-        To negotiate under FIFA’s leadership with FIF-Clubs/Leagues and FIFPro a form of “world collective bargaining agreement” for football based on the notion of specificity of football, mutual co-operations and the common good of the game, rights and obligations of players and clubs, strengthening of international and national arbitration mechanisms, dialogue to elaborate FIFA regulations affecting the two parties, etc.

3.4) Restore the role and the centrality of the FAs while clarifying the relations with the confederations

Some measures already announced by FIFA (choice of the host of the World Cup by the Congress as it was the case before 1966, election by the Congress of the members of the Disciplinary, Appeal and Ethics Committees) proceed along this direction but more needs to be done:

-        To reaffirm that FIFA is a federation of federations and to implement this principle with resolve in concrete terms with more rights to the FAs (seats in the Executive Committee, one position at least for all of them in the FIFA Committees, improved consulting process, re-establishment of a direction exclusively dedicated to their problems) but also more responsibilities (more control and more respect of rules),

-        To recognize the universality and the oneness of football rules and regulations, which are essential to respect the fundamental principle of one FA-one vote already questioned in the 1960s by some such as Sir Stanley Rous, FIFA President at that time,

-        To confirm the important role played by the confederations for the organization of their continental competitions, and study the possibility to *deconcentrate” the implementation of some of the FIFA competences (e.g. co-organization of qualification tournaments) but not the decentralization of some key elements of the universality of the rules (federations issues), the consistency of their application (jurisprudence on players-clubs disputes for example), and the world duty of FIFA to balance football between the continents,

-        To reaffirm the role of the football associations at national level as THE football-governing body but with the responsibilities coming with that role (democracy, balance between amateur and professional football, between clubs and players, transparency, etc.),

-        To confer additional competences to the FIFA Associations Committee composed with associations presidents only and which should be elected by the Congress

3.5) – Adjust FIFA to the evolutions of today’s world to reflect them better

The world has changed – this can be easily seen from the ranking of economic powers – and football has too, giving FIFA the duty to better reflect it (similarly to the debates when the G7-G8 faded away to give more pre-eminence to the G-20 and around the reform of the UN Security Council whose composition is a 70-year old inheritance).

The same observation can and must be made regarding the absence of women in the governance of football (only one female President in Burundi out of 208 associations) and the growing imbalance in light of the rapid growth of women’s football.

-        To expand the FIFA Executive Committee without rendering it inoperative: proposal of 31 members, the 24 current ones, the FIF-Clubs/Leagues and FIFPro Presidents, and four additional seats, one for Africa, one for Asia, one for North and Central America/Caribbean and one for South America as well as one for women’s football to be elected or appointed according to modalities to be defined,

-        To balance the nomination in the FIFA committees among countries and continents,

-        To fully recognize the principle of the continental rotation for the FIFA competitions.

3.6) Reshuffle the power responsibilities between the FIFA President, the Executive Committee and the Associations

It seems necessary at this stage to review the situation and revisit the myth of the President’s all mightiness.

Inherited from the British aristocratic vision of nineteenth century sport management, the position of the FIFA President was and still is a position of a “giant on a small scale”. It was in the 2003 FIFA Congress in Doha only and with the statutes reforms approved at that time and perceived as a correction of the 2001/02 institutional crisis, that a form of “political preeminence” was bestowed on the FIFA President who at last and after laborious compromises with reluctant confederations, also received competences (article 32) a little more in conformity with the fact that he is the only one elected on a worldwide basis.

Moreover, within the Executive Committee, the increased political power of the confederations reduced the space open to individual voting and led the way to an Executive committee where decisions are made after bargaining between voting-blocks and members.

This situation opened the path to all negotiations, including compromise submitted to the political interests of the persons or the continental administrations, and sometimes to the detriment of a collective vision for world football and even for FIFA itself.

As far as the President is concerned, he ends up facing an Executive Committee elected through different voting modes and sometimes opposed visions, as if a head of state would have the legitimacy of his/her people without the possibility to govern with a cabinet of his/her choosing!

Or as if the UN Security Council would not be composed anymore by the representatives of the nations but by delegates of regional blocks, the ASEAN, the African Union, the European Union, the Gulf Co-operation Council, NAFTA or Mercosud!

This situation of the absence in the executive Committee of a stable majority linked to the President and based on a shared collective vision, contributed to the current situation: slowness or blocking-up of reforms, distancing from the common good, decline of individual voting within the executive Committee due to voting instructions given to the members, implementation of the regulations according to the relative influence of such member, accusation of the president to be responsible of all the FIFA problems while he is not politically responsible of everything, etc.

Due to all of the above, reforms are needed:

-        To preserve the universal legitimacy of the FIFA President who is the one elected by all, on the basis of a manifesto, who is accountable to the voting associations of his policies and the implementation of this manifesto, and who has to have the executive powers within FIFA because if this legitimacy,

-        To reform the election modalities of the FIFA President by an election for a group of members with 15 Executive Committee positions in order to guarantee a stable majority (16 seats out of 31) for the management and the governance of football with a genuine consistency during four years and team spirit.

Each candidate to the presidency would run with 15 associations presidents distributed on the six continents, united around a manifesto and with these 16 person list to be elected during the FIFA Congress. In clarity rather than after hotel suites arrangements and why not announcing in advance the future responsibilities that the various candidates would deal with within FIFA if elected as it is the case for future cabinet members.

The fifteen other positions in the Executive Committee would be occupied by the Presidents of the six Confederations becoming automatically FIFA Vice-presidents, the three representatives of clubs/ligues, players and women’s football, and six remaining positions which could be voted in confederations congresses at it is the case today.

Regarding the British vice-presidency, remnant of a historical domination, it should be discussed without any taboo because it resulted into a long absence of English representative from FIFA’s highest body and a feeling of isolation and resentment towards FIFA among English football community due to inter-British rivalries around the three Celtic “nations”. One can even believe that without this statutory British vice-presidency, English football which brings so much to world football would have been much more often elected to the Executive Committee.

However, I do not believe in the limitation of the number of mandates which sounds more than a politically correct form answer in troubled times than a real solution for the following reasons:

-        The choice should stay with the voters able to choose every four years to re-elect or to change their leaders,

-        Moreover, the impact of football of a president, of a governance team and of a manifesto cannot really be felt over eight years. By the way, the IOC voted the limitation of mandates while doubling the duration of the first one to eight years!

3.7) Strengthen FIFA’s governance structures

Various options are possible:

-        To enlarge a strictly legal vision of governance by establishing a strong Governance Division within FIFA.

This division will work “up-stream” unlike the current Division for Legal Affairs which intervenes when problems surface. Its mission would be to establish the dialogue with Associations and other football sectors (FIF-Clubs/Leagues, FIFPro), the drafting of the rules and regulations as well as their implementation, the relations with public and governmental authorities, etc.

-        To strengthen sport justice in order to make it faster, more efficient, cheaper and more transparent at world level (creation of a football chamber with the CAS, more diverse list of arbitrators including for chamber and cases presidents, etc.) but also at national level where it remains mostly embryonic or does not respect international arbitration principles.

-        To enforce the corpus lex FIFA in a proactive way and notably all the texts and regulations which entered into force in 2008 (standard electoral code, national dispute resolutions chambers for clubs-players, national arbitration bodies at national level, financial transparency procedures, co-operation with governmental authorities, intervention in case of violations of associations statutes, in case of disrespect of their obligations by associations members or in case of violations of the latter’s rights, nationality clause of the players, etc.) and in total independence for internal or external pressure. The double-standard approach has to be banned.

Regarding this and in spite of some statements, FIFA has the means to impose its decisions and the respect of its principles over the members of the football pyramid (associations, leagues, clubs and players). Unlike the IOC whose members, the national Olympic committees, are “only” recognized, football stakeholders are either direct members of FIFA (associations) or indirect members (the others being members of a FIFA member). As a consequence, the notion of internal or local affairs or even the pretext of an absence of competence, sometimes invoked by FIFA not to intervene, does not hold.

Firstly because of the above-mentioned legal point but more globally and often observed, when FIFA does not intervene in an association whose leaders violate the regulations, the statutes of their own associations, etc., because they feel “protected” or because they instrumentalize the notion of the autonomy of sport to escape from sanctions, while the public scrutiny clearly reveals those violations.

In the global village which we can call home today, dominated by the instantaneousness of television, mobile phone and internet imposed on our lives, FIFA is automatically blamed – and its image tainted – when these violations are committed by some of its members and when FIFA does not move in to correct them. The improvement of FIFA’s image will be conditioned as well by a strict and proactive implementation of its regulations.

-        To improve FIFA’s weapons in case of violation of its principles.

For example regarding the defense of the autonomy of a federation, FIFA resorts to suspend the association and to punish the whole national football community while the responsibility can be clearly identified. FIFA should have the possibility to suspend the authors of the violation (administrators, clubs, etc.) in a more focused and individualized way.

3.8) Reform FIFA’s administration

Several options are feasible:

-        To internationalize the FIFA management as well as the administration staff to reflect world nature of the organization (without adopting the formula of quotas whose inefficiency was demonstrated both in New York and Brussels)

-        To modernize the president-secretary general relation which is also inherited from the nineteenth century aristocratic vision of a British club and was only partially reformed in 2003:

. The president must have the prerogative to change his administrative arm on his own (article 31.10).

. The overlapping competences (articles 32 and 68) must be eliminated to benefit the president who is the elected official among the two.

. A real management board chaired by the FIFA president must be established to give him the means to implement the manifesto he has been elected for.

-        To separate FIFA football-governing missions and FIFA’s purely economic activities

The first ones should remain of a quasi-governmental nature and as a consequence benefit from the autonomy. The latter belong to the commercial environment and remain integrally under the auspices of ordinary law.

However considering that corruption issues and suspicions surface from the confusion of the two kinds of activities, it will be fundamental to elaborate the appropriate mechanism and structures for FIFA to keep control on its commercial activities without any risk of suspicion of conflict of interest.

3.9) Modify the insulation of refereeing debates

In the history of football, the stability of the Laws of the Game has been of utmost importance since they were protected by the complexity to amend them (3/4^th if the eight votes) within the International Football Association Board (IFAB) from brutal changes often requested by television channels to allegedly make a sport more attractive. This asset – stability not being confused with conservatism – is today enshrined with the introduction of the IFAB in the FIFA statutes.

But today, there is a huge dichotomy between the public debate on refereeing, among fans and media alike, and the perception – genuine or false – that in fact decisions are taken by a very tiny group of persons without a lot of transparency.

Moreover, the debates project an image of parochial wars, or personal disputes, with some dogmatism and perception of a rear-guard fight (video vs. the death of football, end of romanticism, the end of the universality of refereeing and the Laws of the Game while unique but are implemented differently between the various competitions for example when the radio link is used between the referees, etc.).

And the contribution to new technologies (for goal-line, for video-assisted refereeing when the game is stopped, cancelled goal after a unclear off-side, penalty-kick decided after a foul occurring at the limit of the penalty-box, etc.) is inevitable due to the very fast evolutions of these technologies. It can be foreseen that in stadiums, fans will be able to watch in real time and replay the off-side line on their smartphones and ipads, while the central referee will be the only one not having access to this information!

Some options are available without endangering the stability of the Laws of the Game:

-        To launch a very large consultation of FIFA member associations,

-        To enlarge the debate with technology issues added to the mandate of the Task-Force 2014 on refereeing chaired by Franz Beckenbauer

-        To reflect – without any taboo – on the experience on refereeing in other sports (tennis. Rugby) and their own methods (temporary exclusions, public explanation of the decisions by the referees, 10-meter advance for penalties in case of criticism, penalty-try, etc.)

3.10) Define and implement  a more comprehensive notion of autonomy

Several axes are necessary:

-        Autonomy from political and diplomatic issues: football cannot be influenced by regional conflicts and rivalries between states:

. Right to play for all for recognized states (Kosovo) and to play at home as FIFA defended it for Israel in 2003 and for Palestine in 2008,

. Supremacy of sporting rules (integral draws of competitions without any interference not to create any precedent, organization in 2008 of the World Cup qualification matches Chad-Sudan) and supremacy of competitions regulations (for example in 2009 organization on neutral ground of the two matches North Korea-South Korea since the PDRK authorities did not all the ROK national anthem to be played in Pyongyang).

-        Autonomy in favor of sport justice but with the condition that it is confirmed and improved thanks to wide consultation process with football stakeholders,

-        Autonomy from European law in at least three directions:

. To define the content of the notion of sport specificity existing in article 165 of the Lisbon Treaty which has today no definition at all, through a common position with players and clubs/leagues,

. To categorize sporting rules and decisions taken by sport institutions to contain the impact of the Meca-Medina case:

a)     Purely sporting rules (e.g. the size of the field of play) and decisions during the match (penalty, cards, suspension, etc.) would be outside the area of the European law,

b)     Sporting rules with no economic purpose but with economic consequences only (fight against doping, promotion-relegation, selection for national teams, talent’ and minors’ protection mechanisms, protection of the national teams) would be considered as “specific” after negotiation with the actors of football and thus not submitted to EU law,

c)     Economic regulations taken with a purely sporting objective without any economic purpose (e.g. centralized sales of TV rights, ban on club multi-ownership, control of betting modalities, regulations on broadcasting to fill up stadiums, etc.) would “allegedly specific” but submitted to the control of a dialogue between sport institutions and political authorities,

d)     Purely economic decisions (sales of rights, marketing, ticketing, tenders, etc.) would fully submitted to EU law,

. To re-assert the universality of the rules stressing that specificity is not “the specificity of football in Europe regarding football in the rest of the world because of EU law” but “the specificity of football regarding EU law”.

It is not possible to have two sets of rules, one for football in the 27 EU member-states and one for the rest of the world. It is not possible neither to have a “dictatorship” of European law over football in the whole world because of the pre-eminence of West-European leagues.

-        Autonomy and dialogue between associations and governments based on a strong initiative from FIFA to facilitate, encourage and codify this dialogue with the dual goal to support the development of local football and to avoid repetitive crises (suspensions, threats, etc.).

3.11) Reconnect FIFA with the “people of football”

A reform has been launched (strengthening of the code of ethics and of investigation powers of the Ethics Committee, capacity to investigate at its own initiative every time there is a suspicion including retro-actively) to contribute to the reconstruction of FIFA’s image, to the redefinition of its style (more casual chic than suit and tie?) but could be usefully completed among others by the following:

-        A wider openness to world cultures (for example on the issue of the Muslim veil for female players since it is better that young girl and woman plays football with the veil rather than not playing without it, the issue of the official languages with Portuguese and Arabic to be considered),

-        A renewed commitment on societal issues such as racism and discriminations (in line with the work done since the 2001 1ts-ever football conference against racism), gender equality and hooliganism still present (“Barras bravas” in Argentina, Paraguay, in Switzerland even and Indonesia with two dead for the final of the SEA Games football tournament),

-        A strengthened communication in direction of football actors, clubs (with and via the future FIF-Clubs/Leagues), professional players (with and via FIFPro) and registered amateur players in the 208 associations, as well as with the fans who are so central in the passion around football but so often neglected.

x     x     x

I have the strong belief that only a strong, proactive, reformed and respected FIFA can fulfill its mission in the face of the very serious challenges faced by football in the twenty-first century and among which the fundamental balance of this sport and the balance between its components and actors occupy a central position.

Any degree of supremacy, any advantage or any element of pre-eminence given to one of them, whether clubs over FAs, between players and clubs, whether some clubs over the others, between continents and countries, would just reinforce and speed up the  distortions the game and jeopardize its future as well as any return to a healthier situation.

Secondly and in face of this uncontrolled stop-gap evolution, strengthened world governance represents the only solution to take the necessary decisions in a world whose governance has failed in so many areas: international financial services, climate issues, emergence of a fair trade order, health and alimentation problems and water distribution.

In spite of the – unfair – perception of FIFA today, football plays in the world an incredibly positive role to bring together peoples and nations, to fight inequalities, exclusions and discriminations of all kinds, to redistribute its income derived for the World Cup to the benefit of those in need.

Football is only a game and should remain so.

But if the organization of football embraces this universal, solidarity, respectful and proactive vision, football can offer an example and a method to emulate for the international finances characterized by the laisser-faire, disorganized, artificial and even criminal and benefitting an ultra-minority, for health issues and diseases neglected by the pharmaceutical companies when they affect low-income patients, for environmental issues dominated by short-term interest prevailing over our common future, for poverty in the world where live scandalously in parallel hunger and agricultural waste.

For football, only FIFA is able to preserve the above-described seven balances and a strong model of governance but FIFA will not be able to tackle these twenty-first century challenges with institutions and mechanisms dating from the nineteenth.

The French futurist Jacques Attali wrote in 2007 in “A brief history of the future” (Publisher Fayard) revealing pages on FIFA which either will lose control over football drifting progressively towards various forms of segmented mafia, or it would preserve this solidarity, universalist path respectful of differences for the common good and then FIFA will be able around 2050 to “blossom around a world general interest” and become a “planetary democratic government”.

In a world dominated by triumphant individualism, the increased indifference for collective challenges becoming more and more difficult to understand, football can supply this vehicle for coexistence, for the live-together, for the common good.

This “planetary general interest” is central at the very moment when football due to its success, belongs less and less to its actors, and becomes by the day a geo-political and geo-economic tool! And its principal asset lies in the fact that football offers this divided and unequal world the only really universal human activity where nationals, peoples and individuals can express their own pride without detesting or hating the others.

This is this human asset that a strong, proactive and revamped FIFA has the duty to protect during the twenty-first century.

Zurich, Ramallah, Paris, November-December 2011

Read this:

• Steve Menary, sportingintelligence.com: Champagne proposals for Fifa reform set stage for presidential bid

Friday January 6, 2012

As journalists we have investigated FIFA corruption for many years. We are recognized internationally as experts on the dark world of Joseph Blatter and his associates, inside and outside FIFA.

We have been invited to co-operate with Joseph Blatter’s so-called ‘reform process’ at FIFA.

It is absurd that Blatter, who has benefited from the explosion of corruption during his tenure as FIFA General Secretary and President and who managed the kickback scandals for at least two decades, is controlling this ‘clean-up’ scheme. It is created by Blatter to protect him and those close to him. His pretence of a ‘road map to reform’ is risible.

Also, we are concerned that Professor Mark Pieth, through an employee, threatened legal action against one of our colleagues investigating how much Pieth was paid by FIFA and how much he will get from FIFA in future for the work in the so called Independent Governance Committee (IGC), although Professor Pieth eventually confirmed the figures.

In these circumstances – and for the reasons given below – we are unable to co-operate with FIFA’s Independent Governance Committee.

Firstly, there has to be a rigorous investigation of FIFA’s embedded corruption. The discoveries in this process would guide subsequent governance reforms.

Additionally, we cannot participate in any process that includes:

- The Amaury Group. They have a commercial relationship with FIFA, Blatter and Jérôme Valcke, staging the Ballon d´Or ceremony.  That such a conflicted company could have been included in the IGC calls into question the use of the word ‘independent.’

We also state our solidarity with Denis Chaumier, the editor of the Group’s publication France Football, recently fired by Amaury General Director François Morinière. As journalists, we have no interest in collaborating with a committee that includes Mr Morinière.

- Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation. Mr Gulati has been silent during the two decades of Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer’s controversial stewardship of CONCACAF’s finances and the massive World Cup ticket rackets run through this regional confederation. It is reported that Mr Gulati has political aspirations at FIFA and this is an additional reason to disqualify him.

We are concerned that there has not been fuller disclosure of financial and other interests by several other members of Professor Pieth’s IGC. We support the views of the Football Supporters Europe who have also declined to be involved.

What should be happening:

1. Without delay Blatter can and must publish his personal copy of the report by Zug Investigating Magistrate Thomas Hildbrand into kickback corruption at FIFA and the recipients of more than 140 million Swiss Francs (US$100 million) in bribes paid by former marketing company ISL/ISMM.We are advised that there is no legal impediment to Blatter putting his copy online today. We do not believe his claims that unnamed people are delaying publication by him. We are told that the report destroys his claim in June 2010 to have been ‘cleared’ by the investigation.
2. Blatter should publically instruct his friend Jean-Marie Weber, who organised the 140 million Swiss Francs  worth of kickbacks paid by ISL, to disclose the identities of all sports officials who received them.
3. FIFA should adopt immediately genuine transparency. This means putting all FIFA information online – as do all first world governments – including audio/visual streaming and written minutes of all committees, accompanied by all reports submitted. All votes on all occasions must be recorded by name.
4. FIFA’s published accounts are a disgrace, designed to disguise how football’s money is spent – and on whom. KPMG should be replaced by an auditor committed to transparency.
5. Publication of all confidential management letters from auditors KPMG since 1999. These contain explosive evidence about misuse of FIFA funds and criminal money-laundering through FIFA’s Finance Department.
6. All FIFA financial documentation since 1998 when Sepp Blatter became FIFA President should be put on-line – and then subjected to independent forensic examination.
7. This material should include all payment orders made by Blatter using his astonishing power to be sole signatory of cheques. Let the world see a list of who got the money.
8. FIFA’s Finance Department must produce the documentation of the $1 million kickback of March 3, 1997 from ISL to Havelange that was mistakenly sent to FIFA’s UBS account and then re-routed by General Secretary Blatter to Havelange.
9. Immediate suspension of FIFA ExCo member Nicolas Leoz, identified in court in Zug in March 2008 as the recipient of $130,000 in bribes from ISL. (Later we discovered he got an additional $600,000!)
   FIFA can achieve the above, swiftly, without any outside intervention. That would show a genuine commitment to reform. Then the investigations can commence.
10. We think that the only credible approach is for Professor Pieth to be empowered to hire a reputable, independent investigative company to conduct due diligence into all areas of alleged FIFA corruption. We suggest the following crucial areas of investigation followed by rapid publication:
11. The salaries, bonuses and other benefits paid in the last decade to Blatter, Jérôme Valcke and all departmental directors.
12. All fees, bonuses and expenses – submitted and paid – of ExCo members in the last decade. And details of their Swiss tax arrangements.
13. The contracts and cost since 1998 of Blatter’s use of expensive chartered jets, his destinations and justifications for trips.
14. The allegations of corruption in the awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and to Qatar in 2022 and the actions, where appropriate, of ExCo members Issa Hayatou, Jacques Anouma, Hany Abo Rida and Amos Adamu. This crucial investigation should be handled professionally by law enforcement agencies or an independent investigation company, and where possible, liaising and assisting the current FBI investigations.
15. Investigating all aspects of the FIFA-related activities of Worawi Makudi of Thailand including the disclosure of money from FIFA’s Goal and FAP-programme and also World Cup TV rights for Thailand.
16. Investigation of allegations made in Argentina that FIFA finance committee chair Julio Grondona controls offshore accounts, mostly in Switzerland, containing $120 million. There seems no obvious source of this wealth.
17. Investigation is long overdue into how Chuck Blazer could simultaneously be both Treasurer and General Secretary of CONCACAF – and the secret payment to him of $10 million in recent years as ‘commissions.’ Have his offshore assets come from FIFA funds – including his vintage Mercedes car registered in Zurich in FIFA’s name?
18. Re-open the investigation into Jack Warner and extend it to embrace every payment of any kind since 1998 to Warner, members of his family, companies owned by him including Simpaul travel agency, the CFU, CONCACAF and the João Havelange Centre of Excellence.
19. Investigate Blatter’s election campaign expenses for every election including 1998. In that campaign he charged his expenses to FIFA.
20. Who paid Walter de Gregorio and Brian Alexander to organise Blatter’s campaign in 2011 to retain the Presidency? Mr Alexander does not appear to be employed by FIFA but he briefs reporters at FIFA House on behalf of Blatter. Who pays him now?

Additional comments by:

Andrew Jennings:

1. I am becoming weary of the continual deceptions of FIFA’s press office which appears under orders to protect Blatter and General Secretary Valcke and ignore the public interest.

2. FIFA ticks all the boxes in academic definitions of Organised Crime Syndicates. I welcome more discussion of this theme.

Jean François Tanda:

1. This is my personal view and not that of my editor.

2. Regarding the TV rights for Jack Warner the crucial point is: Who approved the books/accounts of Fifa every year despite the fact that Warner is alleged never to have paid for them? In the books of Fifa, these TV rights were not booked with only 1 US $.

Jens Weinreich:

1. The 20 points of action we demand can only be a starting point for all FIFA investigations. Every further suggestion is welcomed.

2. I totally agree with the analysis that FIFA ticks all the boxes in academic definitions of Organised Crime Syndicates. I welcome more discussion of this theme.

3. Disclosure and destination of all fees, expenses and other monies paid to Blatter’s (former?) so-called personal ‘strategic advisor’ Peter Hargitay and businesses – including media and World Cup tickets – he has been connected with in the last decade. Where inappropriate, repayment to be demanded.

TOKYO. The so called Independent Governance Committee (IGC), appointed by FIFA and Committee chair Mark Pieth (Basel Institute of Governance) seems to be a big disappointment.

Key question is:

• Is this committee really independent?

There are way too many reasons to doubt.

Roger Pielke Jr. has offered a first review on his blog The Least Thing.

I am happy to crosspost this analysis. In general I agree with Roger’s comments:

• 2 from 12 IGC members are independent
• 4 from 12 IGC members are independent pending full disclosure of financial ties to FIFA
• 6 from 12 IGC members are not independent (including its chair Mark Pieth)

Before offering Roger’s article I copy-paste all information which have been officially published about composition of IGC so far.

It is not much.

Since we are talking about Good Governance and Transparency and since FIFA’s propaganda is going around the world without proof (see newest Makudi example) I would expect much more and really transparent information.

I don’t know yet if Mark Pieth is really aware of this (his) obligation.

• 1. Independent Governance Committee members

Sunil Gulati

Sunil Gulati is the current president of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) and a lecturer in Economics at Columbia University. He serves as a senior advisor to the Kraft Group. Elected in March 2006, Gulati has been one of the most influential figures in the development of US soccer over the past 30 years. Gulati served as USSF Vice-President for six years and played a key role in major USSF decisions for many years prior to his election as president.

Leonardo Grosso

Leonardo Grosso has been a FIFPro Board Member since 1994 and FIFPro President since 2010. He began his career as a goalkeeper in Serie A with Genoa in 1963 before joining Serie B club Perugia in 1970. After four seasons with Perugia he signed for SPAL Ferrara in 1974 before ending his career with Modena in Serie B in 1978. During his 15-year career he performed in over 400 league appearances in Italy’s two top divisions. Leonardo is a professional lawyer, an AIC (Italian Players’ Union) Board Member, the President of the AIC UNLUS Solidarity Fund and a member of the Board of the Fondo Fine Carriera Giocatori ed Allenatori di Calcio (a Fund for Football Players and Coaches who ended their career). He also serves as vice-commissioner of ENPALS (a social services institute for professional athletes).

Lydia Nsekera 

Lydia Nsekera has been serving as president of the Fédération de Football du Burundi since 2004, and as a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2009. She holds a degree in economic and administrative sciences at the University of Burundi. In addition to her roles at the Fédération de Football du Burundi and the IOC, she was a member of the NOC Women and Sport Commission (2001-2006); a member of the Organizing Committee of the 5th African women’s football championships (2006), a Member of the Women’s Football and Futsal Commission of the African Football Federation (CAF) (2006-), among others. She is currently a member of the Commission d’Organisation Tournois Olympiques de football and the Commission de Football Féminin et de la Coupe du Monde Féminine de la FIFA. She is a Winner of the IOC Women and Sport Trophy (2009).

Lord (Peter) Goldsmith

Lord (Peter) Goldsmith QC, PC is Chair of European and Asian Litigation at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Lord Goldsmith served as the UK’s Attorney General from 2001-2007, prior to which he was in private practice as one of the leading barristers in London.

He became Queen’s Counsel in 1987 and has judicial experience as a Crown Court Recorder and a Deputy High Court Judge. Public appointments he has held include: Chairman of the Bar Council of England and Wales, Co-Chairman of the International Bar Association Human Rights Institution, Board member of the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative, Co-Chairman of the ICC Taskforce on Arbitrations Involving States and Chairman of the UK Financial Reporting Review Panel. He has an active international litigation practice and is a current member of the British House of Lords serving on the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution.

Alexandra Wrage

Alexandra Wrage is the president and founder of TRACE, an international non-profit membership association working with companies to raise their anti-bribery compliance standards. TRACE provides compliance tools and services to its members, including more than 200 multinational companies and more than 3000 SMEs in over 130 countries. Ms. Wrage is the author of Bribery and Extortion: Undermining Business, Governments and Security and the host of the DVD Toxic Transactions: Bribery, Extortion and the High Price of Bad Business produced by NBC. She has written three compliance guidebooks and is a guest blogger on the Huffington Post. Ms. Wrage speaks frequently on topics of international law, anti-corruption initiatives and the hidden costs of corruption and regularly writes articles appearing in the business and legal media. She has served as Chair of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) International Section and Chair of the International Legal Affairs Committee of the Association of Corporate Counsel and is a longstanding member of the Working Group for the United Nation’s Global Compact 10th Principle. Ms. Wrage, a Canadian, read law at Kings College, Cambridge University.

Michael Hershman

Michael Hershman is President and CEO of the Fairfax Group. He is an internationally recognized expert on matters relating to transparency, accountability, governance and security. The Fairfax Group has advised governments, corporations and international financial institutions on issues pertaining to the conduct of senior-level officials and/or the entities with which they do business. In December 2006, Mr. Hershman was appointed Independent Compliance Advisor to the Board of Directors of Siemens AG, a company with more than 400,000 employees. Hershman served as Senior Staff Investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee, the Chief Investigator for the Federal Election Commission, and as Chief Investigator for a joint Presidential and Congressional Commission reviewing state and federal laws on wiretapping and electronic surveillance. Immediately before founding the Fairfax Group, Mr Hershman was Deputy Auditor General for the Foreign Assistance Programme of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Mr Hershman is a Member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Audit Committee for the Canter for International Private Enterprise. For the past ten years he has been a member of, and Vice Chairman of the INTERPOL International Group of Experts on Corruption (IGEC), and for the past 12 years, he has sat on the Board of the International Anti-Corruption Conference Committee (IACC). For the past three years, Mr Hershman has been selected as one of the one hundred most influential people in business ethics by the Ethisphere Institute. Michael Hershman is founder of the International Anti-Corruption Academy an International Organization located in Austria and is Chairman of the Academy Senior Advisory Board.

Guillermo Jorge

Guillermo Jorge is founder and managing partner of Guillermo Jorge & Asociados, a Buenos Aires based legal and consulting firm specialized in preventing and enforcing anticorruption and anti-money laundering laws and regulation and asset recovery remedies. Guillermo is also an active consultant for international organizations and Latin American governments. Guillermo is also the Director of the on Program on Corruption Control at San Andres University School of Law. Guillermo was Drapper-Hills fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the rule of Law at Stanford University (2009), Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (2006), and fellow at the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies (2002). Recent publications include International Standards against Money Laundering, in Bernd Klose (ed.), Asset Tracing & Recovery, The FraudNet World Compendium, 2nd Ed., Dr. Erich Schmidt-Verlag, Berlin, Germany, forthcoming, 2012; Políticas de control de lavado de dinero, in Tokatlián, Juan G. (ed.), Drogas y prohibición: una vieja Guerra, un Nuevo debate, El Zorzal, Buenos Aires, 2010; Recuperación de Activos de la Corrupción, Editores del Puerto, Buenos Aires, 2008; The Peruvian Efforts to Recover Proceeds from Montesino´s Criminal Network of Corruption, in Pieth, M. (ed.), Recovering Stolen Assets, Peter Lang, Bern, 2008. Guillermo holds a law degree from Buenos Aires University (1995) and an LLM from Harvard Law School (2003).

James Klotz

James Klotz is a partner at Miller Thomson LLP, and Co-Chair of the Canadian firm’s International Business Transactions Group. Having led complex corporate and commercial transactions in more than 108 countries, he is widely respected for his deep knowledge and practical experience in the international business arena, his area of specialty. International anti-corruption is a related practice area. Mr. Klotz is currently President and Chairman of the Board of Transparency International Canada Inc. He is also Chair of the Bar Issues Commission of the International Bar Association, and Vice Chair of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of International Law. He was previously Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s International Law Section and Chair of its Anti-Corruption Task Force.

Mr. Klotz is an Adjunct Professor of International Law at Osgoode Hall Law School.

François Morinière

François Morinière has been CEO of Groupe L’Équipe – Groupe Amaury, the market leaders in sport information since September 2008. Responsible for strategy, editorial content and financial results, François manages and oversees the development of the totality of the groups’ printed media (L’Équipe, L’Équipe Mag, France Football, Vélo Magazine, Sport & Style, Journal du Golf, etc.) as well as its digital activities (internet, TV, mobile etc.). Before joining the L’Équipe Group, Mr. Morinière has been the Managing Director and later the Chairman of the Executive Board of CBS Outdoor France.

• 2. FAQs offered by Pieth’s team

Is this an Independent Committee?

As several influential NGOs from around the world have demanded, the reform process needs to be supervised by experts with a broad spectrum of specializations. This includes people who have deep knowledge of the world of football and experience in the processes that are now being looked at, including players, representatives of associations, marketing representatives and media rights representatives. It also includes experts who bring a different perspective, such as NGOs, and representatives of civil society. Lastly, there need to be specialists with professional governance-related know how such as lawyers of high standing, governance experts and investigators. This is necessary to cover all the skills and perspectives needed to support the governance reform. The Independent Governance Committee (IGC) will have the following tasks: It monitors and reviews the recommendations of the four FIFA Task Forces (Football 2014, Ethics Committee, Transparency and Compliance, Revision of Statutes) and submits the final recommendations to the FIFA Executive Committee. The IGC is independent in its recommendations and is the final authority to submit recommendations to FIFA`s Executive Committee. The IGC cannot legally enforce any changes. However, it does have the right to monitor the decision-making and implementation of its recommendations. ICG will regularly inform the public about the progress made.

Why are the Members not working pro bono?

Establishing good governance for FIFA is a serious and time-consuming professional task. It is comparable to other professional services and related responsibilities, such as audit work, forensic services, or compliance monitoring. Such work is appropriately remunerated. Of course, each Committee member is free to decide how to use his or her remuneration, including whether to use the funds for non-commercial purposes, such as university research.

Is the IGC looking into the past?

The primary goal of the effort is to establish good governance for FIFA in a timely manner, taking into account its economic, social and political significance (e.g. current officials will need to undergo the due diligence process, e.g. conflict of interest checks). Obviously a sound governance reform process is based on a risk analysis. Therefore, the IGC will consider the results of both closed and on-going investigations relating to FIFA officials. Finally, the IGC reserves the option to recommend additional investigations into the past, if it deems it necessary in order to implement its recommendations.

• 3. Das Pieth-Gutachten vom September: Governing FIFA – Concept Paper and Report

Crosspost of the first analysis by Roger Pielke Jr.:

Independence Scorecard for FIFA’s “Independent” Governance Committee

FIFA has empaneled a committee focused on helping the organization to reform itself in the direction of “good governance.”  Sepp Blatter calls the committee the “Independent Good Governance Committee.” However, media reports and readily available information shows that  the committee is far from independent.

My scorecard shows, of the 12 announced spots on the committee:

• 2 are independent
• 4 are independent pending full disclosure of financial ties to FIFA
• 6 are not independent (including its chair)

Below are the members who have been announced for the committee and my judgement on their independence from FIFA and rationale.  I add a ** to those judgments where further information would be helpful, but as FIFA operates without a conflict of interest policy that mandates disclosure of potential conflicts, information is hard to come by. I err on the side judging independence when information is lacking.

NOT INDEPENDENT — Chair, Mark Pieth, University Of Basel — Pieth (or Pieth’s institution) was paid 97,979.18€ by FIFA to produce a scoping report, immediately prior to being appointed to chair the committee. Obviously not independent.

INDEPENDENT — Leonadro Grosso, FIFPro President– FIFPro is an association of professional football player associations, formed in 1965.

NOT INDEPENDENT — Lydia Nsekera, President Burundi Football Association — The Burundi FA is a member of FIFA. Obviously not independent.

**INDEPENDENT — Peter Goldsmith, former UK Attorny General and now partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, LLC– There is some evidence that  Debevoise & Plimpton may have financial ties to FIFA (e.g., in advising on a 191.37€M infrastructure project associated with EURO 2012). Such a relationship may or may not compromise independence, I just don’t know, hence the two stars.

INDEPENDENT — Alexandra Wrage, President of TRACE — TRACE states on its website: “Neither Ms. Wrage nor TRACE will accept any fees or travel expenses for Ms. Wrage’s participation on the IGC.”

**INDEPENDENT — Michael Herschman, President of The FairFax Group –The FairFax group helps to advise companies about crisis managment and risk mitigation. It is not known what, if any, financial relationship the Group has had with FIFA now or in the recent past, hence the two stars.

**INDEPENDENT — Guillermo Jorge, Guillermo Jorge & Asociados — The firm specializes in “in the design and implementation of corporate strategies and public policies dealing with business ethics and the prevention of corruption and money laundering.” Once again there is no information on the firm’s current or past financial ties to FIFA, hence the two stars.

**INDEPENDENT — James Klotz, partner at Miller Thomson LLC — Miller Thomson is a business law firm, again there is no information available on the firms current or past relationships with FIFA. Two stars.

NOT INDEPENDENT — François Morinière, CEO of Groupe L’Équipe – Groupe Amaury — This corporate entity is a corporate partner with FIFA for its Ballon D’Or Award.

Others to be added include:

NOT INDEPENDENT — Sunil Gulati, president US Soccer Federation — USSF is a member of FIFA.  Obviously not independent.

NOT INDEPENDENT — unnamed Asian sponsor

NOT INDEPENDENT — an unnamed club representative

If I was a reporter, I’d be asking the 6 members with two stars to disclose publicly their financial relationships with FIFA (or lack thereof). If they are unwilling to disclose such information to allow such a judgment, I’d move them to “not independent.” But in this exercise I have erred on the side of judging independence of these organizations, but absent disclosure it is not at all clear that such a judgment is warranted.

The bottom line is that FIFA’s “Independent Good Governance Committee” is far from independent.

Nun ja. Die Fakten sprechen ein wenig dagegen.

Ich habe da etwas beizusteuern, eine Kleinigkeit nur, öffentlich zugängliche Daten, die leicht abrufen kann, wer sich dafür interessiert. Der Sepp darf nicht nur für die FIFA Einzelunterschriften leisten:

Sepp Blatter, Einzelunterschriftsberechtigungen (c) Teledata.ch

Hier nun der Beitrag. Viel Vergnügen:

By Andrew Jennings

FIFA president Blatter has given himself the authority to sign cheques without the approval of his staff or colleagues. Documents at the Zurich Commercial Register reveal that Blatter has had sole signatory powers for nearly two decades.

João Havelange, his predecessor as FIFA president, currently under investigation by the IOC for bribe-taking, had this power but as he lived in Rio, he allowed his then general secretary Sepp Blatter also to have sole rights.

As corruption allegations swirl around President Blatter he could, if he wanted, write himself a cheque for the $1.6 billion in FIFA’s bank account, take his empty suitcases to FIFA’s bankers UBS on Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse, speed on to the airport, take his last trip on a FIFA-funded jet (he never flies scheduled airlines) and abscond to safe haven in countries like Burma, Russia, Azerbaijan and Zimbabwe where he has been given warm welcomes in the last year.

When Blatter took the presidency in 1998 he kept this power of sole signatory for himself but has denied it to his three successive general secretaries – including incumbent Jérôme Valcke. Even Julio Grondona, the chairman of FIFA’s Finance Committee, does not have this power.

Funny money bank accounts

Mr Grondona is currently under investigation by police in Buenos Aires following the revelation two weeks ago that he and his family and close aides control bank accounts in Switzerland containing more than $70 million. Although the accounts have featured prominently in the Swiss media, Blatter has declined to refer Grondona to FIFA’s Ethics Committee. Police in Buenos Aires are on the case.

Blatter Single Signature

This disclosure calls into question the reassuring reports of FIFA’s Audit Committee, chaired for many years by IOC member Franco Carraro who resigned in 2006 as President of Italian football after allegations of involvement in the Juventus match-fixing scandal. Mr Carraro was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing.

He once commented that FIFA’s Code of Ethics ‘guarantees transparency and strictly ethical standards among the various bodies and officials of FIFA, and football in general.’

Another luminary of FIFA’s seven-member Audit Committee is Justino Fernandes, former governor of Luanda. He was attacked by philanthropist George Soros, the UK, the USA and the European Parliament after ordering the jailing of a critical reporter in Angola.

$9.5 million in kickbacks

Also on the Audit Committee is José Carlos Salim from Brazil, a close confidant of FIFA’s Executive Committee member Ricardo Teixeira, under investigation by Federal Police for tax evasion and money laundering following disclosures by BBC Panorama that he allegedly took $9.5 million in kickbacks from the company awarded FIFA’s World Cup marketing contracts. Mr Salim is an executive of the Brazilian football federation, chaired by Teixeira – who is in charge of the 2014 World Cup.

The existence of Blatter’s sole power of signatory also casts doubt on the due diligence of FIFA’s executive committee. Vice-president Issa Hayatou from Cameroun is under investigation by the IOC for bribe-taking. Nicolas Leoz from Paraguay was also accused by Panorama of pocketing $730,000 in contract kickbacks – but Blatter has again refused to act in either case.

Uhu – here come the Feds

American member Chuck Blazer may not have been troubled as he flouts good governance rules by being both general secretary and treasurer of regional football in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. His offshore bank accounts and assets are currently being examined by the FBI – but Blatter declines to refer Blazer to the ethics committee.

Although there are no allegations of any kind against Michel Platini neither he nor Britain’s former FIFA vice-president Britain’s Geoff Thompson, or his recent successor Jim Boyce from Belfast, appear to have raised the issue of Blatter’s extraordinary power.

This reporter has been banned from FIFA press conferences since 2003 after he published a documented story disclosing that Blatter pays himself a secret six-figure annual bonus for ‘loyalty.’ Blatter announced the story was ‘fiction’ and promised to sue. He didn’t. Blatter refuses to reveal what he pays himself in salary, bonuses, expenses and other perks. And what he takes in cash.

• Andrew Jennings hat noch eine Geschichte parat über Sepp und Philippe und die im Kerngeschäft doch sehr kleine FIFA-Familie, Lesebefehl: No tendering for World Cup tix contract

presentation to Senate Education, Culture and Sports Committee in Brasilia, Wednesday October 26, 2011.

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• Irish Times: Jennings urges Brazil to freeze out corrupt officials
• BBC: Investigative journalist Andrew Jennings tells Brazil that Fifa “stinks”
• Reuters: Call to bar any corrupt officials from World Cup preparations

The Truth about FIFA Corruption & Ricardo Teixeira - A verdade sobre FIFA Corrupção & Teixeira Ricardo

Good morning. Thank you for your invitation.

I have been an investigative reporter for 45 years. I research and acquire confidential documents.

Then I write books and articles and make investigation films for the BBC.

I have been investigating FIFA for 10 years.

I have considerable experience in investigating organised crime and I can assure you that FIFA ticks all the boxes in the academic definition of an Organised Crime Family.

Today I want to tell you about the latest corruption crisis at FIFA and how it will impact on the 2014 World Cup.

But first – Meet some of the members of FIFA’s 23-man Executive Committee.

[JW says: I do not publish all pictures and videos from AJs presentation, and this can be a little bit confusing for my readers, I am sorry.]

# Jim Boyce is Britain’s vice-president. He is silent about corruption. He can expect to pocket around US$1 million in FIFA payments in the next 4 years.

# Prince Ali from Jordan. A lightweight. Put in place by Blatter to get rid of one of his critics.

# Julio Grondona from Argentina, chairman of FIFA’s Finance Committee, currently under investigation for black money accounts in Switzerland. In June 2003 he said on TV, ‘I don’t believe a Jew can ever be a referee at our senior level because it’s hard work and, you know, Jews don’t like hard work.’

# Worawi Makudi from Thailand has been named in several FIFA scandals and is currently under investigation for misuse of FIFA development money.

# Manilal Fernando from Sri Lanka is under investigation for his possible involvement in the notorious US$1 million vote-buying scandal set up Qatar’s Mohamed Bin Hammam in Trinidad in May.

# Nicolas Leoz from Paraguay, at left, president of Conmebol. Swiss court documents reveal he took US$ 730,000 in bribes from the former FIFA marketing company, ISL. Blatter refuses to investigate.

read more:

• The ISL bribery system: 138 million CHF for senior officials in the Olympic world
• Korruptionsbilanz in FIFA und IOC: 140.785.618,93 CHF. Mindestens.
• Sepp Blatters Tafelrunde: das ehrenwerte FIFA-Exekutivkomitee

# Issa Hayatou is president of African football and being investigated by the International Olympic Committee for taking a bribe from the ISL company. It was paid to him by the man he’s talking to here. [Jean-Marie Weber, ISL-bagman]

Currently Ricardo Teixeira is Blatter’s choice to succeed him as FIFA President:

I will have more to say about Mr Teixeira later.

# Chuck Blazer from New York. For the last 21 years Blazer and Jack Warner looted the Confederation of Central, North American and Caribbean countries. Chuck Blazer’s Caribbean bank accounts are now being examined by the FBI.

In December 2006 – at the conclusion of a law suit in New York bought by MasterCard against FIFA – Judge Loretta Preska stated:

Mr Blazer’s testimony was generally without credibility, based on his attitude and evasive answers on cross examination …

She added:

Mr Blazer’s testimony is rejected as fabricated.

FIFA paid MasterCard US$90 million to settle the case.

# Rafael Salguero from Guatemala was nominated by the now discredited Jack Warner. I won’t repeat the allegations about Mr Salguero!

This is the biggest scandal ever at FIFA. It’s the payment of bribes to FIFA officials by the ISL sports marketing company in return for World Cup contracts. It is currently making news in Brazil – and globally.

Let’s introduce this saga through some of the activities of FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke.

Here he is with a friend.

In early 2001 Valcke worked for a French company hoping to buy the assets of the bankrupt ISL company. His team examined the ISL books. He discovered the massive, secret kickbacks to FIFA officials.

He tried to use this information to re-negotiate contracts with FIFA. On April 30 2001, Mr Valcke received this astonishing letter from Blatter:

The highlites are:

Threats were specifically directed against both FIFA and “certain gentlemen of FIFA.”

And …

The position of FIFA in no way will ever be altered by any threats or attempts of blackmailing.”

Two years later Blatter hired this ‘blackmailer’ to be his new head of marketing! You might wonder, why?

Like Chuck Blazer, Mr Valcke also gave evidence in the MasterCard case. Their lawyer Mr Martin Hyman accused Mr Valcke of lying.

Disraeli once said there were three kinds of “lies, darned lies and statistics. ” We have learned from the FIFA Marketing Group that there are more. We have learned about the six degrees of prevarication, white lies, commercial lies, bluffs, pure lies, straight untruths and perjury.

And:

Mr Valcke even lied when testifying about his lies. But in FIFA’s world, that’s perfectly okay.

That was in December 2006. It was an international scandal.

Sepp Blatter announced that Jerome Valcke was fired!

Six months later Blatter brought him back … promoted to be FIFA General Secretary! Again – what hold does the blackmailing Valcke have over Blatter?

[JW says: Read more about 2006/2007 FIFA-lies, included links.]

The ISL contracts-kickbacks story began in 1974 when German businessman Horst Dassler paid bribes to get Joao Havelange elected president of FIFA.

Mr Dassler, from the family who owned Adidas, created the ISL company and wanted FIFA’s lucrative World Cup contracts. Did Havelange put his hand out for money? Or did Dassler offer the bribes? Who made the first move? Mr Havelange could tell us.

Horst Dassler died in 1987. Havelange remained FIFA president, Sepp Blatter was his General Secretary. In between them, here, is Jean-Marie Weber, formerly Dassler’s assistant, who became notorious as the ‘Bagman’ who delivered the ISL bribes. He admitted this in court in 2008.

A key player in the conspiracy to privatise the people’s sport was IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch. One of the IOC’s dirty secrets is the 37-year fascist history of Samaranch, former sports minister for Franco. There he is with his arm up, fourth from right. Samaranch and Dassler worked together to deliver sport to the sponsors.

In 1996 the American IMG company tried to break ISL’s monopoly on FIFA contracts. IMG offered US$1 billion for the rights to the 2002 World Cup.

They soon discovered FIFA General Secretary Blatter and President Havelange were lying to them.

This is IMG executive Eric Drossart. He wrote to Blatter:

Sepp, it is very difficult to conclude anything other than there being two sets of rules in operation here, one for ISL and one for the rest … your responses to our efforts are merely a cosmetic exercise designed to protect FIFA from future accusations of unfair and improper competitive conduct.”

[JW says: Read more about the 1995/96 TV-corruption - Play the Game and in my book Das Milliardenspiel.]

FIFA double-crossed IMG, ISL got the business and Blatter and Weber got closer.

Here’s Sepp Blatter in 2004 with “The Bagman” – Jean Marie Weber.

From 2001 ISL, Weber, Blatter and the bribe-takers were investigated by this man – Investigating Magistrate Thomas Hildbrand. FIFA and Blatter did all they could to obstruct him.

In 2006 the BBC were investigating the ISL bribery scandal.

We sent emails to Blatter requesting an interview.

He ignored our emails.

So we went to see him.

We caught up with him on a public footpath near the old FIFA House on the day of a FIFA press conference.

I have been banned from FIFA since 2003 when I published a documented story revealing that Blatter pays himself a huge, secret, annual bonus.

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JENNINGS: Please can I come into your press conference?

I said please may I come into your press conference?

BLATTER: When, now?

AJ: Yeah now.

BLATTER: Ok.

AJ: May I come in?

BLATTER: Yes ok.

AJ: But some of your press people won’t always let me in.

BLATTER: I will take care of it. Okay?

AJ: I just want to put a question to you now because some of your press people don’t let me get in, they bar me.

BLATTER: You come with me.

AJ: Let me just ask you this, do you know which football officials took bribes from the ISL Marketing Company?

BLATTER: Sorry, I don’t speak about that.

AJ: Do you know which football officials took payments from the ISL Marketing Company?

BLATTER: I don’t answer these questions. (…)

AJ: Have you tried to find out who took these payments from the ISL Marketing Company?

BLATTER: You know better than I know, you know better than I know.

AJ: You’re the president of world football, I’m only a reporter.

BLATTER: No, listen, listen, you know better than I know. This is a file which is in the hands of the justice and the courts and it shall be there until …

AJ: Will you tell me who took the 1 million franc bribe? … I’m told you ordered this bribe should be moved to the man who’s name is on the payment, can you tell me who it went to, was it President Havelange?

As soon as we stopped filming he refused me entry to his press conference.

Two years later I was at the courthouse in Zug. Six ISL executives were accused of trading while insolvent. The judge confronted Jean-Marie Weber: Did ISL pay around US$100 million in bribes to sports officials?

Yes, said Mr Weber.

For years I’ve been gathering evidence about corruption at the highest levels within FIFA. But there was one crucial document I couldn’t get hold of. Then just over a month ago a trusted source delivered the goods.

It’s a secret document, which some people at FIFA hoped could be kept buried forever.

Line by line it details 175 secret payments, totalling tens of millions of dollars.

I know from well placed sources that the payments were bribes.

Among the list of names. Some senior FIFA officials.

This is real money, massive kickbacks on World Cup contracts.

Havelange owes a lot to Blatter. On March 3 1997 ISL made a terrible mistake. They sent a bribe for 1.5 million Swiss francs – around US$1 million – intended for President Havelange – direct to FIFA’s bank account!

I tell this story in the first chapter of my book and in BBC films. Here’s the evidence, from ISL files:

FIFA general secretary Sepp Blatter ordered the money transferred quickly to a Havelange private account. He denies it ever happened.

How much did FIFA president Joao Havelange take in bribes?

My guess is in excess of US$50 million. Did he pay tax in Brazil on this money?

I will now move on to 3 other cases of bribes paid to FIFA officials. The BBC sent each man at least 2 emails inviting them to grant interviews. They did not respond.

One of them is Issa Hayatou – well known to “The Bagman” Jean-Marie Weber. This is from my film of November 29 last year.

Mr Hayatou is a FIFA Vice President representing fifty-three African countries.

The list shows ISL paying him 100,000 French Francs.

Next to his name it says “barzahlung”. German for cash payment

He didn’t answer our letter either. This time I got a bit closer.

Mr Hayatou. Andrew Jennings we’ve met before. Could you spare me a moment?

I’d like to ask you about monies.

Please, please, please.

We’ve looked. The ISL books show that you received money from the ISL books.

That’s what the lists say. They say you received money, Issa.

Your name is in the books from ISL. Your name is in the books for getting money that is why I am asking you.

Arrete please, out.

OK, yeah.

Then there’s Nicolas Leoz from Paraguay. In court in Zug in 2008 we were told that he had received US$130,000 from ISL in the year 2000.

Then I obtained the complete list – and discovered that Mr Leoz had pocketed a lot more

Thanks to this secret list of payments we’ve obtained, never revealed in open court, we can see that Mr Leoz got a great deal more.

The ISL list shows he received three further payments.

One of two hundred thousand dollars.

Another one of two hundred thousand.

And yet another one.

That’s a further 600,000 dollars worth of bribes for Mr Leoz

We wrote asking him to explain the payments. He didn’t respond so I tried to catch up with him at a luxury hotel in Zurich.

Senor Leoz, senor Leoz. Did you take bribes from the ISL company?

Senor Leoz, (Spanish translation of above)

Si or Non?

Senators – you will remember that in 2001 you published your report of an investigation into Ricardo Teixeira and the CBF.

You discovered that Teixeira and his company were receiving money from a company in Liechtenstein named Sanud.

Here’s a random page from that report.

I understand that your investigation could not find out where Sanud got its money from.

I discovered that Sanud’s money came from the ISL company.

Here’s a few extracts from the company bribe list

In November last year I caught up with him. This is what the world has watched.

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JENNINGS: Here’s another Liechtenstein company, named Sanud.

It got 21 payments totalling 9.5 million dollars.

This time there are some clues about who got the money.

They point to the most significant person linked to our secret document. He’s another member of FIFA’s executive committee.

And the man in charge of the next World Cup, in Brazil in 2014.

Panorama has met him before

In 1998 we tried to ask him about his role in sponsorship deals for Brazil’s national team.

You don’t want to talk about football.

I would like to talk about football.

No more answers. No more questions. Bye, bye.

But we’ve got new questions, because that Liechtenstein company, Sanud, has been closely linked to him in the past.

An inquiry by the Brazilian senate in 2001 found that funds from Sanud had been secretly channeled to Mr Teixeira.

So did the 9.5 million dollars on our list end up in his pocket as well?

We wrote to Mr Teixeira and asked. He didn’t reply either.

Hello Mr Teixeira. Could we talk to you please?

So I went back to FIFA’s hotel in Zurich to ask him.

Did you take your bribes through the Sanud company?

What were those payments from the ISL company for?

Mr Teixeria.

Oh dear.

Swiss Magistrate Thomas Hildbrand discovered enough evidence to prove that 2 FIFA officials took ISL bribes – and that Blatter had covered it up. In May 2010 he announced that the case had been settled. Here’s his public statement:

Investigating Magistrate Thomas Hildbrand in August 2008 began an investigation into allegations that certain members of FIFA’s Executive Committee received kickbacks on marketing contracts. After five years of inquiries the accused agreed to repay 5.5million Francs and the case was closed.”

Who were the accused? They are Blatter, Teixeira and Havelange. They have paid a small fortune to have their names kept secret.

But they cannot. The BBC and several Swiss newspapers are fighting a legal battle to have Hildbrand’s report published.

Blatter, Havelange and Teixeira are resisting – and here are the Swiss lawyers for clients B1, B2 and B3.

I know this because the BBC receives copies of all correspondence.

• B1 is Blatter and Fifa, represented by lawyers Nobel & Hug
• B2 is Ricardo Teixeira, represented by law firm Schweiger
• B3 is Joao Havelange, represented by law firm Niedermann.

Last week the Public Prosecutor in Zug rejected the arguments of Blatter, Teixeira and Havelange.

The big question now is: Will Blatter, Teixeira and Havelange continue to fight for suppression?

Our lawyers say it is inevitable that the Swiss Supreme court will order disclosure in the public interest – although it may take another 12 months.

Then you will have a massive international scandal hanging over your world Cup. Two Brazilians and President Blatter.

Thank you.

[JW says: As far as I heard the long Q & A session with Senators and AJ in Brasilia has produced much more details - and fun.]

Krankenschwester (links), FIFA-Exekutivmitglied Pirate Chuck Blazer (rechts). (c) Travels with Chuck Blazer and his friends

Es ist eine weitere Geschichte aus dem real existierenden Schattenreich der Korruption: aus dem Exekutivkomitee des Fußball-Weltverbandes FIFA. Der schwergewichtige US-Amerikaner Chuck Blazer, Generalsekretär der nordamerikanischen Konföderation CONCACAF quasi auf Lebenszeit und jüngst als Whistleblower aktiv, um die korrupten Exko-Kollegen Mohamed Bin Hammam und Jack Warner zu enttarnen, kassiert seit Jahren viele Millionen nebenbei. Und wieder kommt das Wort der “Kommissionen” ins Spiel, das wir schon aus dem ISL-Korruptionssystem kennen – oder aus der FIVB: Blazer macht den Acosta.

Im Fall Blazer verhält sich das so:

Eine von Blazers Firmen, die auf den Cayman Islands domizilierte Sportvertising, unterhält den Vertrag mit CONCACAF. Blazers Gehalt, Höhe unbekannt, wird auf Sportvertising-Konten bei der Barclays Bank, Grand Cayman, und der First Caribbean International Bank auf den Bahamas überwiesen – nebst 10 Prozent Kommissionszahlungen auf alle Marketingverträge der CONCACAF.

Zehn Prozent nur? Mensch, ist Blazer bescheiden.

Allein in den vergangenen fünf Jahren summierte sich der Nebenverdienst des Chuck Blazer auf 9,6 Millionen Dollar. Hinzu kommen seine FIFA-Tantiemen und andere Einnahmen in unbekannter Höhe – eventuell auch von den WM-Bewerbern aus Russland (2018) und Katar (2022). Chuck Blazer hat für Russland gestimmt – und angeblich für die USA.

Um die Fantasie anzuregen sei gesagt, dass Chuck seit 20 Jahren gemeinsam mit Jack über die CONCACAF-Geschäfte gebietet. Wer mag, kann hochrechnen, wie viel er legal, halblegal und illegal in diesen Jahrzehnten kassiert haben mag. Diese 9,6 Millionen sind eine erste Variable.

Chuck Blazer hat den Sachverhalt der Kommissionen auf Anfrage bestätigt. Im zweiten Vertrag zwischen CONCACAF und Sportvertising aus den 1990er Jahren sind folgende Zahlungsdetails festgehalten:

Der erste Vertrag wurde im April 1990 abgeschlossen. Die Beträge verdoppelten sich im Vier-Jahres-Zeitraum. Wie viel Blazer direkt aus dem aktuellen Vertrag erhält (neben den zehn Prozent Kommission), ist unbekannt.

Chuck und Jack machten das stets unter sich aus:

Andrew Jennings hat die Geschichte für den Sunday Herald in Glasgow und seine Webseite Transparency in Sport aufgeschrieben. Voilà:

Lucky Chuckie! Blazer takes secret 10% on sponsor deals

By Andrew Jennings

FIFA official Chuck Blazer from New York, the ‘Mr Clean’ who turned whistleblower and forced his colleague Jack Warner out of the game, secretly trousered nearly $2million in “commissions” from football marketing deals last year.

The previous year was even more lucrative for Mr Blazer. He took $2,622,714 in 2009 and over the last five years has paid himself $9.6 million in bonuses on top of his pay as general secretary of Concacaf, the confederation of footballing nations in the Caribbean, central and North America.

The accounts of the 35-nation Concacaf are marked ‘private and confidential’ and not made public. The commissions are listed – but not who gets them. Blazer, whose remuneration is also confidential, signs and presents the accounts to the confederation’s annual conference.

In late May Blazer reported Warner for his role in what appears to be a $1 million plot by Qatar’s Mohamed Bin Hammam to bribe Caribbean nations to support him in the battle with Sepp Blatter for FIFA’s presidency. Warner hurriedly quit FIFA and Bin Hammam will learn his fate later this month. Two other members of FIFA’s executive committee are also under investigation.

There is still shock that Blazer turned against Warner. He sat next to Concacaf president Warner for two decades, appearing to ignore the endless scandals, especially Warner’s industrial-scale World Cup ticket rackets.

Blazer helped install Warner in power at Concacaf in 1990 and in return was appointed general secretary. Blazer’s contract specified that he was hired from one of his private companies, Sportvertising, subsequently domiciled in the Cayman Islands. This company would receive Blazer’s never disclosed salary and crucially, 10% of ‘all sponsorships and TV rights fees from all sources received by Concacaf.’ According to documents obtained by the TiS, Blazer’s payments were channelled offshore to accounts in the name of Sportvertising at Barclays Bank, Grand Cayman, and the First Caribbean International Bank, Bahamas.

Blazer has confirmed these facts about the commissions and claims they are known to the delegates to CONCACAF. He also confirms that they are confidential.

‘A majestic symbol of elegance’

Blazer is both chief executive and treasurer, flouting most accepted concepts of good governance. Concacaf’s other officials are seen as weak and in effect the two men have controlled regional football. Blazer says his football hero is former FIFA president Joao Havelange, ‘a majestic symbol of elegance in our sport.’ Havelange is currently being investigated by the IOC after BBC Panorama alleged that he took a $1 million bribe from a marketing company.

Warner is also president of the Caribbean Football Union, part of Concacaf, and only weeks before the bitter split, happily instructed the usually cash-strapped CFU’s bank to issue a $250,000 bank draft to Blazer.

Concacaf vice-president Lisle Austin from Barbados has attempted to fire Blazer but been turned away from their headquarters in Trump Tower, New York by private security. Blazer, in his mid-sixties, lives in a Trump Tower apartment with his parrot Max and girlfriend Mary Lynn. He is so broad of girth that he cannot fit into the largest of FIFA’s executive saloon cars and has to be transported in a luxury van.

The American press, hopeful that the USA can win control of the Concacaf region, writes admiringly of Blazer, who sports a flowing white ‘Cap’n Birdseye’ beard, as a Father Christmas style character who is ‘gregarious and witty’ and dines in New York’s best restaurants.

During a FIFA marketing dispute in a Manhattan court five years ago the judge ruled that Mr Blazer’s testimony was ‘generally without credibility based on his attitude and demeanour and on his evasive answers on cross-examination.’ The judge added that some of his testimony was ‘fabricated.’

Zuletzt habe ich Sepp & Chuck & Jack friedlich vereint auf jenem ominösen CONCACAF-Kongress im Mai 2011 in Miami gesehen (befragt und fotografiert), auf dem Sepp eine Million an die Konföderation spendete, was er als FIFA-Boss aus der Portokasse nimmt und sogar darf. Bin Hammam fehlte damals angeblich weil er kein US-Visum bekommen hatte (diesem Gerücht saß auch ich damals auf). Tatsächlich hatte er mit Jack längst einen Bestechungstermin knapp zwei Wochen später in Port of Spain ausgemacht, worüber Chuck seinen den CONCACAF-Anwalt ein Dossier anfertigen und dem FIFA-Lügengeneral Jerome Valcke vorlegen ließ.

CONCACAF Kongress, Miami, Mai 2011

Die Frage ist, wer aus diesem Trio das Jahresende noch in seinen millionenschweren Funktionen im Selbstbedienungsreich FIFA erlebt.

Analysis: Putin’s increasing influence in the Olympic world and the awarding of the FIFA World Cup to Russia and Qatar make it clear for everybody: Everything is for sale in the world of sport – and the worst is to be expected.

Recently, the Russian media speculated on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s jadedness from holding office. Will he continue to dominate Russia and become president again in the coming year? Or will he yield the second presidential term to his partner Dmitry Medvedev? Is the 58-year-old Putin tired of governing? What else could tempt him? The journalistic astrologers in the Kremlin brought two possibilities into play: The job as Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) and as the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Normally, such speculations would only trigger a pitying smile. IOC experts would argue calmly: To become IOC President Putin would have to become a member of the IOC first. That could, theoretically, happen at the 2012 Session in London. And then? In 2013, a new IOC President will be elected as successor of Jacques Rogge, who retires after his cycle. As said, normally Russian power plays would trigger a chuckle. In the case of Putin, however, nobody is laughing. All smiles are fixed. Fear rules.

Many believe that Vladimir Putin is already the most powerful man in the Olympic world – one who more or less along the way had his Romanian Judo buddy Marius Vizer elected as President of the International Judo Federation. Not to forget, of course, how Putin virtually dragged IOC chief Rogge around the circus by the nose ring at the IOC Session in Guatemala in July 2007. Putin flew in with a large entourage, met dozens of IOC Members and made all kinds of promises, most likely paid for by the oligarchs or the Gazprom Group; he bent the truth beyond recognition – and flew home as the Olympic champion. Sochi, his summer residence on the Black Sea coast, was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Since then, Putin has made a deal with Bernie Ecclestone that will bring a Formula One Grand Prix race to Sochi. The Universiade (World Student Games), a little appetiser, will be held in 2013 in Kazan. The same year Moscow will organise the World Championships in Athletics. Just recently Putin organized the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships in Moscow, within a few weeks after the event was taken away from Tokyo because of the tragic earthquake. But the biggest coup ’sports buddy’ Putin had was on 2 December 2010, in Zurich, when the Executive Committee of the world’s football federation (FIFA) awarded the World Cup in 2018 to Russia under scandalous circumstances – of course, matches will also be played in Sochi.

Putin created some confusion in the bidding process when he decided not to turn up in front of the FIFA Executive Committee at the beginning of December. From a distance, as an oracle, he declared that he did not want to put untimely pressure on the sport administrators. What a trick! In the weeks before, he had already met more than half of FIFA’s board members. Vyacheslav Koloskov, a long-time member of the FIFA Executive Committee, announced in Moscow long before 2 December that the decision was made – in favour of Russia, of course.

So it eventuated. And while FIFA President Joseph Blatter in Zurich announced Russia and Qatar (2022) as winners, Putin was already sitting on a plane to Switzerland. In the evening the stage was his alone. In front of the assembled world press, he buoyantly took the steps to the podium and gave a casual greeting in Swiss-German. Putin took the journalists’ questions in barely one hour. He demonstrated his power; he celebrated his success.

On all-sports projects in Russia, of which many swallow up several dozen billion Euros from public funds, especially the big wigs of Putin’s power structure and those oligarchs, who subordinate to his will, are going to benefit. One of these oligarchs, Roman Abramovich, owner of FC Chelsea, postured in Zurich at friendly photo sessions, not only with Putin. “I expect Mr Abramovich to invest in this project,” Putin pontificated. The Russians laughed loudly.

The oligarchs’ so-called investments will be compensated by the state through all sorts of privileges and benefits – so there is a guaranteed profit at the bottom line. This is the case for Abramovich and the World Cup, just as it is for the billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who not only owns a castle-like property in Sochi, but who is also going to build the port and run other projects, or the Gazprom group, which is responsible for most of the Olympic alpine routes in the North Caucasus.

(c) Government of Russia

According to FIFA no one knew the outcome of the World Cup vote because the results were allegedly kept by the notary of the city of Zurich in sealed envelopes until President Blatter opened them on live-television. However, half an hour before the announcement television station Al Jazeera, based in Doha, Qatar, reported the winner of the World Cup 2022. And Dmitry Chernyshenko, CEO of the Winter Games in Sochi, tweeted, minutes before Blatter took the note with “Russia” written on it from the envelope: “Yesss! We are the champions! Hooray!!!!”

They all knew. Not only Al Jazeera, not only Chernyshenko. Even Putin. Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, to whom Blatter has been obligated for one and a half decades, was already sure of victory and timely flown in.

On 2 December 2010, when Russia and Qatar became World Cup hosts, a special chapter was written in sports history. Not so much because FIFA thereby opened up new markets, but mainly because these decisions were surrounded by incredible corruption rumours. When those 140 million Swiss francs, which were once paid by the sports marketing agency ISL/ISMM to high IOC and FIFA officials, was the largest fraud scheme of Olympic sports so far – a scheme which ran brilliantly for decades and during which those responsible, bribe donors and bribe recipients, were not criminally prosecuted –, this FIFA World Cup decision could be the largest single case of corruption in sports history.

several related posts:

• Die FIFA sagt: Russland 2018, Katar 2022
• Whistleblower Waleri Morosow: “Es wird Blut fließen”
• Russland, Vancouver und Sotschi 2014: Abschied vom Elbrus
• KGB-gate: Samaranch, more Russian olympic secret agents, IOC, FIFA and the Opus Dei
• Sepp, zu Gast bei Putin: “I am really glad that you greet me as a friend”
• Grüße von der Russenmafia: Alimsan Tochtachunow
• Hörprobe: Korruption im Sport
• Россия 2018: готова вдохновлять

“Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain,” goes the definition of the non-governmental organisation Transparency International. It is this corruption concept that is seen here: Russia, not only the Gazprom Group, and Qatar have invested several hundred million Euros in the bidding campaigns. There is only a small probability that evidence showing how Russia and Qatar have bought votes can ever be presented. Russia and Qatar are not exactly model democracies – they guarantee confidentiality.

The show in Zurich reached its absurd climax when Putin, of all people, criticized English media’s corruption revelations as “unacceptable”. But the English bidders were not the only ones who angrily claimed that they had been cheated. “Do you believe that?” someone wanted to know from Putin. He grinned. “No.” One word was enough.

The brutality with which the bidding offers from Russia and Qatar were carried through has shocked even savvy business men in this industry, and this highlights the tectonic shifts of power in world sport for every observer: Western Europe and North America, once the dominant regions of sports policy, are continuing to lose influence. The new power holders are Russian oligarchs and ‘super democrats’ like Putin, Chinese Communist Party bosses, Arab oil sheikhs and various other potentates, for example, of the former Central Asian Soviet republics, where many highly decorated sports administrators work as drug barons and close companions of the dictators – like Gafour Rakhimov in Uzbekistan, Vice President of the International Amateur Boxing Association, AIBA, Vice President of Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and, according to FBI files, head of the drug cartel in Central Asia.

At the moment there is not much talk in the public of the Chinese Communist Party bigwigs who, back in 2008, successfully organised the Olympic propaganda games in Beijing, but insiders expect attacks on the power base sooner rather than later – maybe even the candidacy of the Chinese-born Ng Ser Miang (Singapore) for the IOC presidency as early as the Session in Buenos Aires in 2013. One thing is clear: These powers have untold economic resources which they can deploy as targeted. Sport offers many ways to gain prestige and influence, to launder money and, sometimes even, like the Emirate of Qatar, with military precision, to reconstruct an entire country as an international hub and a new Olympic centre. Right now the Qataris are aiming to acquire the 2017 World Championships in Athletics. Doha instead of Lausanne as the “Capitale Olympique” – that is the agenda.

One can easily find the slogan on many billboards in Doha and even in official publications:

Inspiring Qatar: The new global sports capital

Let us have a look at the list of the major upcoming events. Admittedly, 2012 will see the Olympic Summer Games in London, but not much more remains for the old Great Powers in the next few years. In 2012 the European Football Championship will be in Poland and Ukraine; in 2014 the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi and the football World Cup in Brazil; in 2016 the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro; in 2018 the football World Cup in Russia and surely the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang (South Korea), the latter is the likely outcome when the IOC takes its decision in Durban on 6 July. In 2020 the Summer Games could be held in Turkey (Istanbul) or could, for the first time, be held in Africa. In 2022 the World Cup in Qatar. In 2026, the Chinese will go for the World Cup by all means. In 2030, for the centennial celebration, the World Cup will very likely be awarded to Argentina and Uruguay.

What then, Europe?

In 2034, it could work out with the World Cup – in two and a half decades.

What then, USA?

The Americans are, after George W. Bush’s scorched earth policy, two disastrous Olympic defeats (New York 2012, Chicago 2016) and numerous other sports political bankruptcies, in such a state of shock and have no qualified sports administrator that they do not dare to make a new bid for 2020.

The continental distribution of mega-events in the coming years is only one argument; there are more: Those who analyse the key positions in Olympic associations will also find a movement towards new power structures.

Søren Bang: Western countries are losing the race for major sporting events

Take FIFA: Just recently, in early January, long-standing Vice President Chung Mong-Joon (South Korea), a billionaire from the Hyundai-dynasty, was replaced by 35-year-old Jordanian Prince Ali, the brother of King Abdullah II. Although it is not blessed with gushing oil wells and gas stocks like Qatar and Russia, the Jordanian royal family provides a breathtaking Olympic Performance: Princess Haya, sister of Prince Ali and second wife of the ruler of Dubai, has been the President of the International Federation for Equestrian Sports since 2006 and, in that capacity, an IOC Member. Her brother, Feisal, President of the NOC of Jordan, was also sworn in as an IOC Member a year ago in Vancouver. The most powerful Olympic family is sitting in Amman.

Not far away in the microstate of Qatar, Emir Hamad and his childhood friend, Mohamed Bin Hammam, are tinkering with the most spectacular takeover of the year – maybe of the decade. Bin Hammam will challenge the incumbent Joseph Blatter on the 1st of June at the FIFA Congress in Zurich. Blatter, the man whom he evidently provided votes, bought with money from the Emir in two very dirty election campaigns votes – in 1998 against Lennart Johansson (Sweden) and in 2002 against Issa Hayatou (Cameroon). Bin Hammam is said to have ensured support from 70-80 of the 208 national associations in FIFA already. One month remains to get about 30 more votes.

According to all the news and gossip from the concrete desert Doha, nothing seems impossible. One rule dominates the environment: Everything is for sale. Who would know that better than Bin Hammam, who is on FIFA’s Finance Committee, and who has been controlling the development program for a decade – and on top of that also distributes the money of the Emir, especially among poor nations in Africa and Asia. Who would know that better than Vladimir Putin, the wannabe IOC-President?

Since 2 December 2010, anything is to be believed, and the worst, disturbingly, is to be expected. Putin was, apropos, asked what he could still want after so many successes in the sports arena. “Russian victory,” he said. He cannot get enough. Then he left the podium after delivering a piece of folk wisdom: “Here in Russia we say: One who doesn’t take risks, never gets to drink champagne!”

geschrieben für Play the Game

Voilà:

The Magicians of Sport: How the Greatest Corruption Scandal in World Sport Vanished Before We Knew It Existed

By Jens Sejer Andersen

International Director and founder, Play the Game

Usually, I am a great admirer of magicians. People who can make elephants appear out of nowhere or escape from underwater cages hand-cuffed and wrapped in chains, really deserve respect.

There are, however, some magicians that we should beware of, and quite a few of them do their tricks in sport. I am not referring to artists like Lionel Messi or Justine Henin who can make unimaginable things with a ball. No, the magicians I would like to talk about are exercising their witchcraft more discreetly.

They do not seek our admiration over their skills. On the contrary: They shun the public eye so much that they have become experts in one aspect of magic: They know how to make us look in one direction while they do their work in the other direction, and more than that, when we look back we do not even notice something mysterious has happened.

Thanks to these magic abilities, a number of corruption scandals in the highest ranks of sports leadership continue to vanish, even before we realise that they actually exist.

Where were for instance your eyes looking in late June this year? I suppose that they, like mine, were directed at a flat screen TV to follow the last matches in the group stage of the FIFA world cup in South Africa.

Abracadabra! While we were staring on one of the greatest shows on earth, the biggest corruption scandal ever documented in sport disappeared out in the blue.

Did you notice?

If not, don’t feel ashamed. It was not meant for you to see.

While events in South Africa spellbound the world, a dry and formal sheet of paper was produced more than 8,000 kilometres away, by the public prosecutor in Zug, the Swiss canton in which FIFA resides.

On the 24 June, the prosecutor ended eight years of legal proceedings with a statement that put an end to the so-called ISL-affair.

Simultaneously, FIFA noted in a very brief media release “FIFA is pleased that the prosecutor of Zug has finalised his investigations�?.

FIFA had reasons to be satisfied indeed. For although the Swiss prosecutor that day confirmed that FIFA officials had received millions of Swiss francs from the ISL company and kept them in their pockets, and that FIFA should pay a compensation of 5,5 million Swiss francss – around 4 million euros – things could have turned out much worse for football’s governing body.

The collapse of a marketing giant

For the ISL was no street vendor of services to FIFA. ISL stands for International Sport and Leisure and was from the early 1980’ies and until its collapse in 2001 by far the biggest sport marketing company in the world. It was founded by the Horst Dassler, whose family owned Adidas.

ISL bought TV and marketing rights from the international sports federations and the International Olympic Committee and re-sold them to media companies and private sponsors. Thanks to its close personal relations to FIFA and other big federations it became a driving force in the explosive commercialisation of elite sport.

However, even a booming company in a booming sector can make mistakes, and in 2001 the ISL collapsed because it had seriously overestimated the value of its products.

When the Swiss administrators took over the bankrupt ISL and started looking at the internal papers, they soon discovered some strange payments. In the first place, the liquidator of the company, Thomas Baur, found that at least 3,5 million Swiss francs (at the time 2,2 million euros) had been paid out in personal commissions and they started writing leading sports officials in order to get the money back.

And in 2004, Mr Bauer did get most of that money back. Not in many small portions, but on one big check of 2,5 million Swiss francs. It would of course be interesting where this sum came from and on behalf of which sports leaders it was paid back, but after hard work from a splendid Swiss lawyer, Peter Nobel – the Federal Court, the highest court in Switzerland, ruled that no names should be named.

Peter Nobel is not only an excellent player in the court room – a magician in his field you may say – he was also the man who issued the big check. And, coincidentally perhaps, he has for many years been the personal lawyer of Joseph S. Blatter, President of FIFA.

But this was only the beginning. Other parts of the Swiss justice had an interest in the ISL, and one investigative judge, Thomas Hildbrand, was particularly active, launching firstly one investigation into how six ISL-directors managed their affairs, and secondly another one into the relation between FIFA and the ISL.

138 million Swiss francs in kickbacks

In 2008, the court in the Swiss city of Zug concluded the first of these two cases, the proceedings against six former ISL directors for embezzling large portions of money belonging to FIFA. The legal case itself ended up with acquittals and mild sentences since the defendants could convince the judges that FIFA in reality had accepted the way ISL handled FIFA’s money.

But in the indictment a stunning revelation was brought forward and confirmed by the defendants in the court room:

Over 12 years, from 1989 to its bankruptcy in 2001, ISL handed out no less than 138 million Swiss francs – then 87 million euros – in personal commissions to sports leaders in order to get lucrative TV and marketing contracts.

The payments were channelled to the private pockets or bank accounts of high ranking sports leaders through an advanced system of secret funds in Liechtenstein and the British Virgin Islands. Some of the kickbacks were handed over personally by the top executive of the ISL, Jean-Marie Weber, who travelled around the world with a suitcase filled with cash.

Bribes as salaries for sports leaders

According to the defendant ISL directors, these payments were a normal and integral part of the daily sports business and a precondition if ISL wanted to sign contracts with their customers.

“I was told the company would not have existed if it had not made such payments,�?

said former chief executive of the ISL Christoph Malms, and was backed the former director of finances, Hans-Jürg Schmid.

“It was like paying salaries. Otherwise they would have stopped working immediately�?,

he said about the sports officials.

How come that the six directors admitted these secret personal commissions so freely? The answer is simple. In Switzerland this kind of kickbacks or bribes were not criminal until new anti-corruption legislation was passed in 2006.

And although the directors were quite open-mouthed, they did not risk their future career by dropping names in the court.

We only know that when ISL flourished, some of its most important customers besides FIFA were the ATP in tennis, IAAF in athletics, FINA in swimming, FIBA in basketball and for some years also the IOC.

You would perhaps expect that these organisations did react to the revelations in Zug by tracing corrupt sports leaders in their own ranks or at least distancing themselves publically from such malicious practices.

But no: From the international sports community there has only been one reaction to what is beyond comparison the biggest known corruption scandal in sport: Unanimous and complete silence.

After the verdicts in Zug 2008, there was still a hope: Perhaps the third and last criminal investigation could help us answer the simple question: Who took the bribes?

How much did they get each? – after all, 87 million euros is a lot of money, and not that many persons were in charge of TV and marketing contracts. Do these persons still hold important positions in sport?

Unfortunately, the end of the ISL affair this summer did not answer any of these questions.

The settlement does confirm what FIFA has long denied: That FIFA officials have taken millions of Swiss francs from the ISL in return for contracts. And it does oblige FIFA to pay back some of the money stolen from sport.

But even if we assume that all cheques have been paid by FIFA: 2,5 million Swiss francs to the liquidators, 5,5 million Swiss francs in the recent decision plus the costs of the legal procedure – we are still far from the impressing 138 million Swiss francs that went with the corruption. The financial balance is clearly in favour of those who cheated.

Before I go deeper into analysing the mechanisms that allow such a huge scandal to run almost unnoticed by the world public, one more important question arises from the ISL case:

Is the magic over?

Did corruption in sports organisations die with the ISL in 2001, and is the buying and selling of TV and marketing rights now a clean business?

No answers given at Olympic congress

I raised this question during a session about “Good governance and ethichs�? at the Olympic Congress in Copenhagen last year where over 1,200 high ranking sports officials gathered to discuss the challenges to sport. The answer from the moderator, Youssoupha Ndiaye from the IOC Ethics Commission, was easy to understand:

“The panel does not answer questions�?.

To be fair, the audience was quite amused by that response. Well, perhaps not all – probably not the man sitting a few rows from me, Jean-Marie Weber, the man who once travelled the world with a suitcase full of money.

I do not know which tasks the elegant Weber had at the Olympic Congress, but it cost the IOC President Rogge some sweat explaining Weber’s presence. It was apparently not the IOC itself that had invited him, but to get an accreditation through the strict security measures of that meeting you had to have very good connections in the so-called Olympic family of sport.

Only several weeks after the congress Rogge declared that Weber would not get Olympic accreditation in the future.

Although Jean-Marie Weber was in his time without comparison the most influential sorcerer in sport, he was not and is not the only one, and there are several cases that prove that corruption in sport did not vanish with the bankruptcy of the ISL.

The royalties of volleyball

Take for instance the great leader of world volleyball from 1984-2008, Ruben Acosta from Mexico – or Dr. Acosta as he prefers to be called though no papers supports this doctorial title.

As a President of the Federation Internationale du Volleyball (FIVB), Ruben Acosta – very actively assisted by his flamboyant wife Malú – introduced a kind of management style that is comparable to absolute monarchy.

Ruben Acosta made the FIVB a resounding commercial success: He changed the counting system of volleyball, he decreed tiny shorts for female players, and last but not least: He embraced and developed beach volley with its flavour of sun, sex and soft drinks. All these initiatives were aimed at making the ailing sport more appetizing on the TV screens.

And here we go again: While you and I were staring at the suntanned men and women playing in the sand with very little clothes on, the magician went to work.

Without asking anyone he introduced a rule by which every person who signed a TV or marketing contract on behalf of FIVB, was entitled to a personal commission of 10 percent of the contract sum.

He also introduced another rule: That the president signs all contracts.

According to their critics, this procedure may have secured at least 25 million US-dollars for the Acosta family.

Sooner or later this practice had to be ratified by the General Assembly. When some volleyball leaders began to question them, a code of conduct was soon introduced, according to which anyone who criticises volleyball or its institutions, could be excluded by the president.

On that account, several respected international volleyball leaders have had to retire involuntarily in the last decade. They are not even allowed to enter the local volleyball club, so in fact they are deprived of a basic civic right, the right to take part in association life.

Removed critical auditor’s note

But even magicians sometimes fail. When the FIVB accounts for 2001 showed that Ruben Acosta that year alone had received 8.4 million Swiss francs, over 5 million euros in personal commissions, Acosta decided to hide the number by grouping it with other amounts. Perhaps he thought that the General Assembly would not be able to handle such a big figure.

The auditors, however, took the rare step to make a critical note in the accounts because the personal commission was not transparent. This made Acosta even more worried: How would the General Assembly be able to hand such a complex message?

So in order not to confuse the delegates, Acosta simply decided to delete the critical note of the auditors before the FIVB accounts was published. This action is illegal in most countries, even in Switzerland.

So in 2006 the local court in Lausanne decided that Acosta and his nearest aides at the FIVB offices had really done something wrong. But as the judge felt that no harm had been done and there had been no criminal intent, Acosta was acquitted. His only obligation was to pay legal costs in the amount of 4.300 Swiss francs. Again, a good financial balance for the cheater.

Acosta’s magic tricks did not go unnoticed at the IOC. The IOC’s Ethics Commission produced a devastating report about Acosta’s mismanagement already in 2004. But as Acosta reacted by leaving his IOC seat in anger and protest, the IOC decided to keep the report secret, and Acosta got four more years to harvest the money that belonged to volleyball.

The handball Pharao

Acosta’s successor from 2008, long-standing Vice-President Jizhong Wei from China, has fortunately decided to replace his loyalty to Acosta with a loyalty to his sport. Wei has stopped all payments to Acosta, upsetting many of Acosta’s friends, and he has taken many other positive steps. But he has still not succeeded in rehabilitating those volleyball leaders that were excluded from all volleyball because of a sense of ethics.

This sensibility is not predominant in another sport where the top grabs for more than the ball.

The Egyptian business man Hassan Moustafa has had a firm control of the International Handball Federation for the past ten years and has his own way of understanding good governance.

It is well documented that he has tried to influence the outcome of Olympic qualifiers. That he has travelled for over 300,000 euros without presenting receipts. And that he has demanded insight into the doping testing plans for national teams.

At the General Assembly of the IFH in Cairo last year, it was also evident that the European opponents were not allowed to speak. A rival for the presidency, the Luxembourger Jean Kaiser, simply had his microphone cut off.

These facts did not impress the assembly which re-elected Hassan Moustafa by an overwhelming majority, 115 against 25. A similar majority ousted the long-standing secretary general Peter Mühlematter, who had dared to tell the public what Moustafa was doing with handball’s money.

Earlier this year a new story has been confirmed. From 2007 to 2009, Hassan Moustafa was employed as an advisor for the German marketing company Sportfive. Moustafa’s salary was 602,000 Euro.

Curiously, in that same period, Sportfive acquired the TV rights for the International Handball Federation.

And even more curiously: When Sportfive’s director, Robert Müller von Vultejus, left his position and went to rivaling company UFA, a quite new player in sports marketing, this company won the next bid for the IHF TV rights. Thought-provoking, isn’t it?

The Bermuda Triangle: Sport, sponsors, media

Would it have hindered the re-election of Moustafa if his constituency had heard about these magic events?

I guess not. Moustafa is simply a typical representative of the power structures that international sport has developed since the early 1980’ies, thanks to visionary businessmen like the late Horst Dassler.

30 years ago a triangle was created which you may call the Bermuda Triangle of sport – a triangle where transparency, accountability and true democratic standards always disappears mysteriously.

Roughly explained the triangle has three legs that support each others: sports organizations, multinational companies and TV companies.

Adidas and other consumer goods producers give sponsorships to sports organizations to ensure that they are run by people with the right mindset – some of the first to benefit from this was the late IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and the former FIFA President Joao Havelange.

In return, these outstanding sports leaders ensured that their sponsors got exposure and access to emerging markets everywhere in the world. By signing marketing contracts with national federations the sponsors could get an even stronger foothold on local markets.

The globalization of the TV media was of course a driving force in this development. TV companies saw the potential of elite sport to build up audiences and were willing to invest huge sums in acquiring broadcasting rights. These rights were paid either with tax-payers’ money – or in case of private TV companies, with money from advertising by consumer goods producers.

TV and corporate companies have one thing in common. They are on a highly competitive market. They need sport in this competition, and they are ready to raise the stakes to get sport on their side.

This has been to the great advantage of sports organizations which in their turn are on a market with very low competition. Within each sport, they are de facto monopolies. Internationally and nationally there is only one federation in every sport.

As a result, sport has been able to gather ever-increasing revenues from the sponsors as well as from media companies.

A breeding ground for corruption

Much of this money has been used by the sports presidents to globalise sport and strengthen their own position. The main procedure has been to establish new federations in poor countries with no structure for athletics, handball, volleyball or any other sport and to provide these new federations with generous grants and other kinds of privileges. They have been so eager to recruit new members that FIFA and some other sports federations have more member countries than the United Nations.

The upside of this development is that the leaders of sport can claim that they are breaking the colonial scheme of sport, fulfilling the goal of making their specific sport accessible to the whole world, also to the less privileged people and countries. By involving new groups and giving each new member state a vote, they can with some right say that they are making sport more global and more democratic.

But there is also a remarkable downside. The one-country-one-vote system is also yielding a lot of power to countries with no particular engagement in a given sport, and – if you take into account that the generous amounts are granted without any strict control over their use – power is also given to sports leaders who may think more about their own fortune that about the fate of their sport.

When we are talking sport in a development context, this is a factor we have to take seriously. Can we say without blushing that the fortunes that the international federations have spread out over the developing countries for the past 25 years, have had an important impact on sports participation in the populations? Are the international federations efficient and reliable partners in the expansion of grassroot sport?

At the 2nd Magglingen conference for sport and development in Switzerland in 2005 I had the opportunity to briefly encourage small grassroot sports projects to prepare for a situation where corruption in one project could destroy the reputation of sport in development more broadly.

Immediately a middle-aged man grabbed the microphone and declared he was “livid�?: There is no corruption at all in sport for development, he stated, and I owed everybody an apology!

I was quite surprised by this reaction. And I became even more surprised when I found out that the furious man was the Zimbabwean Tommy Ganda Sithole, prominent IOC director of international cooperation and development.

It is not only surprising, it is deeply worrying if a man in that position rejects that sport is vulnerable to corruption everywhere, even in developing countries.

The fact is that sports organisations are too often breeding grounds for corruption, and there is no real interest in stopping this state of affairs from the inside. On the contrary, the power base of the leadership of sport is built on this scheme of clientelism, of quid pro quo.

The family culture

Those few sports leaders who dare speak up against this system of governance, are met with ridicule, exclusion or marginalisation. Such behaviour is not only threatening the power structures, being illoyal to your leaders is also incompatible with the cultural concept that sports leaders like to promote: Sport as a family.

Over and over again, Sepp Blatter and his likes refer to their sport as a family, the football family, the family of volleyball and above all the all-embracing Olympic family.

The family word may produce good feelings in the corridors of power, but is not as innocent and heart-warming as it may seem. The family unity is also used as a shield against open internal debates.

In a family we are loyal to each other. We do not have any real conflicts of interest. We do not hang our dirty laundry out in the open. And at the end of the day, Daddy knows what is best for us.

If sport was regarded as a community rather than a family, conditions for the debate would change radically. They might even become truly democratic. The family is based on the idea that we all share the same interests. Democracy is based on an understanding that we have different interests and it offers us a way to resolve our conflicts. And top do so, it is a prerequisite that the conflicts are visible and can be discussed publicly.

If the affairs of sport really were a matter for sport only, we could leave the family members to take care of themselves. But during the last 30 years, sport has developed into an unparalleled economic, political and cultural power, and it is therefore of fundamental importance to democratic societies that sport takes its internal democracy seriously as exactly that – and stops seeing itself as a family.

Otherwise the world of sport runs the risk of blending into other industrious groups that handle big fortunes, live outside the law, operate freely across borders – and is based on family values. We have a name for this type of organisation – a word borrowed from Italian.

The media as part of the fan crowd

I have now discussed some of the most important internal factors that make sport unable to clean up its governance by itself.

Let me – in equally rough terms – look at those external forces that you would expect to exercise some control.

One is the world I come from as a journalist: The media. I am embarrassed to say that you should not expect too much. Very few, if any, major sport scandals have in the first place been revealed by investigative journalists.

Sports journalism emerged as a twin to sport, in the late 19th century. From the outset, sports journalists has seen themselves as fans, gladly assisting sport with bringing out its message of character building, national pride and peace in the world.

It has probably oiled the media’s willingness to co-operate that sport was always an item that could attract readers and advertisers. And in recent times, the commercial partnership has grown enormously with the TV media as one of the leg in the before mentioned Bermuda Triangle of sport.

So although sport, as I just mentioned, exercises considerable influence in society, journalists are still focused on the battle field rather on the games in the corridors.

To give you an example: When searching in the international newspaper database Lexis-Nexis which covers most of the Western Hemisphere I found only 44 articles mentioning the ISL and FIFA after the decision to settle the case in June. The articles reached only 12 out of the 208 member nations of FIFA.

We often regard the media as the fourth branch of power in democracies. Sport is a notable exception.

Protecting the autonomy of sport

With such a silence from the inside of sports as well as from the media it is hard to blame our elected politicians that they do not react. Why should they?

Sport is regarded as widely popular, and politicians would not like to provoke their voters by opposing sport. Also, sport might single out critical politicians and stop inviting them to getting media exposure at national team games and medal ceremonies.

Moreover, in many countries sport is seen as a part of the independent civil society, a no-go for politicians, and protecting sport’s autonomy is on top of the agenda of all sports organisations.

Whenever the IOC mentions the need for good governance, they also mention autonomy of sport. There is a clear underlying warning to politicians: If they do not listen, sport will react.

Every now and then FIFA issues a bulletin against a member nation’s government for interfering in football’s own issues. Sometimes FIFA might be in its right to do so, but we have seen many cases in which FIFA intervened against governments that tried to stop corrupt football leaders. Ask in Poland, ask in Greece, Kenya, ask right now in Nigeria.

And independently of the reasons, when FIFA threatens a country with being suspended from international football, most governments pull back.

Last but not least, sports organisations prevent political and police intervention by placing their headquarters in countries that have very favourable working conditions.

Home country number one is of course Switzerland where the organisations enjoy special tax privileges plus the same legal status as any local bowling or household association. This means that the kind of corruption that distorts business competition, like in the ISL case, may well be illegal now. But it is still not illegal to hand over personal commissions in relation to internal events, like elections or choosing hosts of sporting events.

So what can we do to demand transparency, democracy and fair play from such important and potent players in a global, billion-dollar entertainment industry, that are intimately linked to the largest consumer good producers, protected by media conglomerates, and blessed with enormous political, financial and cultural influence?

A solution derived from an emerging threat

The solution may be helped forward from an unexpected side, from people that care even less about sport’s integrity and are even more powerful and unscrupulous.

In the past years, the combination of match fixing and illegal gambling on the Internet has become a growing industry and a growing threat to sport – especially to sport as a business.

Match fixing is indeed an impressive threat. Experts assess that the annual revenues in the world gambling market reach 350 billion dollars – out of which 100 billion dollars are derived from the illegal market, dominated by organised crime in Asia.

If the public in general looses confidence in how sports results are made – in equal competition with uncertainty of the outcome – it will not only affect the state gambling companies that finance sports organisations in most of Europe and many other countries around the world.

It will also affect the lucrative Bermuda Triangle seriously and the core business interest of sport, the media and sponsors.

This threat is by nature global, crossing sports as well as geographical boundaries. An increasing number of sports officials understand that a global all-comprehensive threat must be faced with a global all-comprehensive answer.

A global coalition for good governance

Play the Game suggested in 2006 at a seminar organised by the European Council and UEFA, that we let ourselves be inspired by the World Anti Doping Agency which has proved that a legally binding cooperation between governments, supranational institutions and sport can create considerable progress.

We believe it is time to create a new world institution – a “Global Coalition for Good Governance in Sport�?.

This new anti-corruption body should be run jointly by the International Olympic Committee and the international sport federations, by the United Nations, by governmental organisations like the EU and the European Council, and – as a supplement to the structure we know from WADA – should also invite representatives of the media, the scientific community, the fan trusts and the sports business side to the board.

The “Global Coalition for Good Governance in Sport�? should

1. define minimum standards for transparency, accountability and democratic procedures
2. have administrative capacity to ensure that the minimum standards are respected
3. Build up a global co-operation between the betting industry and governments to counter illegal gambling and match fixing
4. actively welcome sports leaders and administrators, media professionals, sports researchers and other stakeholders to report irregularities
5. have a legal mandate and professional expertise to investigate cases of mismanagement and corruption, including the right to search sports offices, archives etc. without prior notice
6. be equipped with right to issue bans against individuals or groups who violate the global standards and suspend those who are under investigation
7. be provided with a legal status that enables it to report supposed violations to national or international legal authorities for further trial
8. communicate its findings to the public through annual reports, conferences etc.

Though the focus these years is mostly on match fixing, it would be a great failure to focus narrowly on this aspect of corruption which is managed by organised crime.

Also sports organisations and their leaders must accept that they should be held accountable for their practices.

Rays of hope

Last week, the Secretary General of WADA, David Howman, suggested exactly such a WADA-style anti-corruption body to the sports ministers from the Commonwealth countries. He said he will repeat this proposal to the sports ministers from the European Union at their meeting next week.

And a month ago, sports ministers from the European Council agreed to act against match fixing.

Though I may have painted a quite dark picture of sports politics, I see some hope in these recent developments.

More than that, there is a hope in the fact that sport really can be used to more noble ends than filling the pocket and building prestige of a privileged few magicians in sport.

Let us not turn our eyes away from these magicians, let us instead take a much closer look at them and see if their tricks will survive our awareness.

At our next Play the Game conference from 3-6 October 2011 at the German Sport University Cologne, we will once again invite leading whistleblowers, academics, investigative journalists and sports officials to discuss how we can build alliances against corruption and for democracy, transparency and freedom of expression in sport. I sincerely hope that you will take part and contribute with your ideas and efforts to ensure that the many magicians will not make the values of sport disappear.

Let me end on a quote by an author who has highlighted magic more than anybody else, the inventor of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowlings who has said:

“We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.�?

Last weekend the German magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ has revealed that Hassan Moustafa, president of the International Handball federation (IHF) had been under a personal contract with the Sportfive marketing agency, with a remuneration of 602,000 Euro, during a period for which Sportfive had won a contract with the IHF for the TV rights to all IHF events. ‘Der Spiegel’ had obtained a copy of the contract between Moustafa and Sportfive, and also a confirmation directly from Moustafa.

Clearly, for Mr. Moustafa to obtain a very vague, but lucrative personal contract from Sportfive while at the same time the IHF is selling its valuable TV rights to the very same company, in a competitive bid situation, smacks of conflict of interest, to put it mildly. That some observers will take it a step further and start talking about kick-backs is rather understandable, especially as they feel that Moustafa has shown over the years that he has no understanding of, or regard for, the concept of ‘conflict of interest’. This remarkable state of affairs was picked up by handball media around the world, for instance in the major handball web site ‘Handball-World’.

Not surprisingly, the IHF president found it necessary to try to counter these damning reports. On January 26, the IHF issued a press bulletin regarding the Spiegel report to back up statements the president had made.

This press bulletin, however, was only provided to German news outlets, and has not been posted on the IHF website.

The impression is that the IHF avoids giving its own press bulletin too much publicity, in an attempt to keep the exposure of the whole matter as limited as possible. This does not tend to be the methods of someone who has nothing to hide.

But the key points of the press bulletin are worth noting: in the face of the existing evidence, the president does not attempt to deny the existence of the lucrative contract.

Instead, he tries to downplay the issue with rather hilarious arguments.

For instance, “he was at this time primarily a businessman with a Cairo-based company, with which Sportfive had obtained a contract, and his position with the IHF was in any event just an honorary one.�?

Well, while the president may feel that this attempt to portray his relative priorities may provide some kind of excuse, it all too well reflects precisely what his critics have said about the priority he has given to personal enrichment, in contrast to his treating the development of world handball as a small matter on the side.

It is also somewhat amusing that the press bulletin closes with the comment that the “the IHF has come to the conclusion that Moustafa in all respects has acted correctly�?.

I think it is universally understood that an IHF Media Officer will describe an ‘IHF conclusion’ in the way that the autocratic president orders it to be described… The typical reactions of knowledgeable people to both the initial revelations and the attempt at a rebuttal are well captured in the web site of the well-known German investigating journalist Jens Weinreich, who also criticizes sports media in handball-crazy Germany for not giving the matter quicker and more prominent coverage.

An interesting twist to the whole story is that the Director of Sportfive during the period through 2009, when Sportfive had both the IHF TV rights and the personal services contract with Moustafa, was a Robert Mueller von Vultejus, who has since abandoned Sportfive in favor of a rival entity, UFA Sports, a subsidiary of the important German media group RTL. UFA Sports, which was established as recently as in 2008, was in early 2009 ready to jump into the competition for the IHF TV rights for the new quadrennial 2010-13.

Somewhat to the surprise of the sports media world, UFA managed to beat out Sportfive and other competitors and gained the rights for 2010-13. These results were announced in connection with the IHF Congress in June 2009.

At the time, it may simply have seemed that this ‘coup’ could be ascribed to the experience acquired by Mueller von Vultejus when dealing with the IHF while at Sportfive.

But after the most recent revelations, the new regime at Sportfive is perhaps beginning to wonder if there’s more to the story as they have indicated that they are now examining the events involving Sportfive’s relationship with the IHF and Moustafa. They are bound to be asking if their former Director brought his questionable practices with him to his new company and therefore whether the bidding was really won fairly by UFA, as now is being forcefully claimed by Mueller von Vultejus.

Perhaps the bidding was not as ‘sealed’ and confidential as it should have been!?

Persons connected with the IHF who are familiar with the process would understandably be unwilling to risk their situation by speaking openly, but it would not come as a shock if one day it came out in the public that UFA had indeed been given a chance to ensure that they had the winning bid…

Finally, on a personal note, I would like to say that it is painful to have reasons to keep writing negative things about the IHF. But my loyalty is to handball, its image and success, and to the people who work in an honest and selfless way for handball, not to the IHF and its current regime.

Crossposting von teamhandballnews.com mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Christer Ahl

• Christer Ahl hier im Blog
• Kurzbio von Christer Ahl
• Vortrag von Christer Ahl auf der Konferenz Play the Game 2009 in Coventry: “World Handball hi-jacked by its president: structural problems, scandals and an urgent need for change“

OSLO. In the first week of December a meeting attended by many celebrities marked the 10th anniversary of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in Stockholm, Sweden. Not surprisingly the representatives agreed that WADA has been a great success. This was underlined by the president of the IOC, Jacques Rogge, who reminded the assembly about the status of anti-doping before WADA:

“Anti-doping was ineffective, we had no standards for testing and no harmonization regarding sanctions. WADA has helped change attitudes towards doping and doping is now widely recognized for what it is: a corrosive evil that threatens the integrity of sports”, he said to the members of WADA Foundation Board in Stockholm City Hall.

The IOC is one of the organizations that carries out anti-doping work with more credibility than it could previously. Nevertheless, perhaps, the most significant development in the past ten years has been the increasing involvement of public authorities. Governments have, in addition to their involvement in WADA, transformed a common policy into the UNESCO Convention which provides a legal framework in which all governments can address the use of drugs. Operations by governmental units, such as the police and customs, have unmasked drug use, for example BALCO in the USA and Operación Puerto in Spain. This seems to have taken anti-doping work in a new direction.

But despite these claims of progress anti-doping activity and WADA are still likely to face numerous challenges in the decade ahead. I have picked ten areas where I feel there is still work to be done.

1. The anti-doping approach

Since WADA was created in 1999 the number of doping controls has increased from 118,000 in 1999 to 274,000 in 2009. This indicates that sports organizations all over the world prioritize the punitive approach based on detection and deterrence. WADA is also looking at preventative measures and is currently preparing an education program targeted to young people both inside and outside sport. It seems promising but will require the support of sports movements and governments to succeed.

2. Role of governments

Even though it is helpful for the anti-doping work to have the governments onboard, two elements are of concern: (i) The fact that 128 nations have signed the International Convention against Doping in Sport (the UNESCO Convention) seems to be a success but in reality it tells us almost nothing. It remains to be seen how many of these nations really will implement and follow-up on their commitment. And will UNESCO have the necessary capacity to enforce the Convention and follow-up the signatories? Probably not. This job will then, in all likelihood, become another costly responsibility for WADA even though it is strictly speaking outside its remit. (ii) During the Stockholm meeting it was noted that six members of the Board have been there since the start. All of these came from the sports movement. Politicians and other Governmental agents are members for just a short period. This may influence the power balance because only the sports leaders have in depth experience and knowledge of the field, and it was felt that this could be a potential problem.

3. Code compliance

In Stockholm it was reported that 649 organizations have accepted the World Anti-Doping Code, “the core document that provides the framework for harmonized anti-doping policies, rules and regulations within sport organizations and among public authorities:” When it comes to adoption of the rules the situation is not nearly as positive. Finally, just a small number of organizations enforce all the elements of the Code. This gives lack of harmonization – with consequences for the athletes.

4. The Russian situation

It is of importance for the credibility of the anti-doping work that nations with athletes who win medals have an efficient and effective system. It was reported in Stockholm that WADA now intervenes in Russia, India, Brazil, Nigeria, Jamaica and Turkey. Of particular importance is the situation in Russia, a superpower in sport. There are some positive signs: an independent anti-doping organization (RUSADA) is now established, Russia has now allowed WADA to send doping control officers (with multiple business visa) to carry out unannounced tests, they can now bring the necessary equipment, and it was reported that the parties are close to a solution regarding bringing biological samples out of Russia.

5. The expenses

As mentioned, 274.000 tests were carried out last year. The cost, including sample collection, transport, analysis, payment to doping control officers and administration is on average 1000 USD for each test. This gives a total cost of close to 300 million USD just for the controls. In addition there is the expense of supporting hundreds of organizations, meetings, seminars etc. Anti-doping has become an industry. It will be a challenge to ensure the money is spent efficiently.

6. Legal costs

WADA and some international federations are involved in court cases which go on for months and years. In addition to cases brought to the Court of Arbitration for sport (CAS), more athletes are taking their cases to civil law courts with a consequent increase in costs for WADA and sport federations.

7. New drugs will appear

WADA has spent a huge amount of money on developing tests for new drugs. But we are still waiting for methods to test for gene doping. New methods and drugs will appear in the years to come. One way to overcome this challenge, however, would be for WADA and the enforcing bodies to co-operate with medical companies.

8. Whereabouts information

WADA has met resistance among some athletes’ groups after the revised Code (and the international standard for testing) came into force earlier this year. For the years to come this will present WADA with a difficult balancing act. The wish for effective anti-doping work has to be married with how people within and outside sport understand these methods. For many, whereabouts is seen as part of an expanding anti-doping regime that is moving from a justifiable approach to an indefensible surveillance regime.

9. ADAMS

The Anti-Doping Administration & Management System (ADAMS) is, after many years and many millions of dollars of expenditure, still a matter of concern. The IOC will implement ADAMS for the winter games in Vancouver and any system failure will represent a setback for anti-doping work. For many athletes it is difficult to handle ADAMS – which again gives rise to resistance to anti-doping work.

10. Corruption

Elite sport is about big money. It has been indicated that doping control officers and employees at accredited WADA laboratories have been involved – or that some sought to involve them – in corruption. If some athletes or federations can go “clean” by paying people in important positions there is no hope for the anti-doping work.

Thanks to Dag Vidar Hanstad for allowing me to publish this editorial.

Dag Vidar Hanstad is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and a member of the International Network of Humanistic Doping Research. He has worked has a sport journalist before.

• Anti Doping Norway

Open letter to the IOC President and the International Olympic Committee, gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark on the occasion of the 121st IOC Session and the XIII IOC Congress

Call for action against all forms of corruption in sport

Dear President Rogge and IOC Members,

We believe the time has come to act against all forms of corruption in sports.

We are alarmed that the sporting community is now in a situation where worldwide illegal gamblers and match-fixers are operating at all levels of sport. Their activities are a small slice of an illegal gambling market that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and poses an imminent threat to the core values and credibility of sport.

Also, we believe that within a number of sports and national associations non-transparent and corrupt practices continue. For instance, the ISL affair in which a small group of leaders in international sport has cashed in more than 100 million dollars as secret personal commissions in return for TV and marketing rights should be met with a strong response.

We believe that there is a number of other forms of corruption in sport: human trafficking, money laundering and tax evasion. These activities are thriving thanks to the non-intervention of the sports community, local and national governments, sports sponsors, the media and other stakeholders.

We believe that the global sports community has an obligation to act as a role model of transparency, accountability and democracy if it is to promote positive social, cultural and personal values to society and youth.

The International Olympic Committee is the worldwide leader in sports. It has the moral aspirations as well as financial and political clout to show effective political leadership in this matter.

Therefore, we urge the IOC to take immediate, concrete and convincing steps to counter all forms of corruption in sport in order to safeguard the social, cultural and educational values of sport.  

We ask you to urgently consider all relevant measures, including

• a definition of common standards of good governance and accountability
• a strengthening of the role of the Ethical Committees in sport so they can be allowed to act truly independently and have capacity to sanction those who violate the rules
• a modernisation of the way international federations manage democracy and transparency
• mechanisms for exchange of information and intelligence related to corruption
• and, if necessary, the establishment of an international anti-corruption institution for all countries and all sports

In a defining moment for world sport, we call on the IOC to take decisive steps.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Jefferson Kreek
Rower, Trainer, Author, Entrepreneur
Olympic Gold Medallist , two-times Olympian
Canada

Aidan White
General Secretary
International Federation of Journalists
Belgium

Alessandro Donati
Member of the governmental Anti-Doping Commission
Rome Ministry of Health
Italy

Andrew Jennings
Investigative reporter
Author
United Kingdom

Anne-Marie Dohm
Rector
Danish School of Media and Journalism
Denmark

Bert Schaap
Sportswriter
De Telegraaf
Holland

Bob Munro
Chairman
Mathare United
Kenya

Christel Schaldemose
Member of the European Parliament
Denmark

Christopher A. Shaw
Professor, Author
University of British Columbia
Canada

Dave Boyle
Chief Executive
Supporters Direct
United Kingdom

David Rowe
Professor of Cultural Research
University of Western Sydney
Australia

Eduardo Galeano
Author
Uruguay

Ezequiel Fernández Moores
Sports Editor
ANSA Latinamerica
Argentina

Florian Petrica
Editor-in-Chief of Sport
The Money Channel, Realitatea Media
Romania

Gary Wicks
PhD, Associate Professor Emeritus
St. Olaf College
USA

Gerhard Treutlein
Professor
Centre for Doping Prevention, Heidelberg
Germany

Henning Eichberg
Lecturer, Dr. Phil.
University of Southern Denmark
Denmark

Henrik Brandt
Director
Danish Institute for Sports Studies
Denmark

Ivan Waddington
Visiting Professor
Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and University of Chester
United Kingdom

Jan Mühletaler
M.A., Head of section
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Switzerland

Jens Brinch
Chairman of the Board of Play the Game
Former Secretary General of the Sports Confederation of Greenland
Denmark

Jens Sejer Andersen
Director
Play the Game
Denmark

Jens Weinreich
Investigative journalist
Author
www.jensweinreich.de
Germany

John Beech
Head of Sport & Tourism Applied Research
Coventry University
United Kingdom

John Thrane
Editor-in-Chief
Danish Association of Company Sport (DFIF)
Denmark

John Volkers
Sports reporter
de Volkskrant
Holland

Joseph Maguire
Professor, School of Sport & Exercise Sciences
Loughborough University
United Kingdom

Jørgen Povlsen
Head of the Institute of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics
University of Southern Denmark
Denmark

Jørn Hansen
Lecturer, Institute of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics
University of Southern Denmark
Denmark

Kaj Kunnas
Sports Journalist
OY Yleisradio AB/Finnish Broadcasting Company
Finland

Kim Schimmel
Associate Professor of the Sociology of Sport
Kent State University
USA

Lasse Svensson
Chairman, County Sports Federation of Västmanland
Former national and international volleyball leader
Sweden

Laura Robinson
Investigative journalist
Author
Canada

Malcolm Clarke
Chairman
Football Supporters Federation
England and Wales

Mario Rodrigues
Editor
All Sports Magazine, Mumbai
India

Mike McNamee
Professor of Applied Ethics
Swansea University
United Kingdom

Nikki Dryden
Human Rights Attorney  
Two-time Olympic swimmer
Canada /USA

Olukayode Thomas
Sports Editor
Timbuktu Media
Nigeria

Paul Einar Borgen
Marketing Director
Sportsmaster
Norway

Sigmund Loland
Professor
The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences
Norway

Søren Riiskjær
Director of the Secretariat of Sports Politics
Danish Gymnastics and Sports Associations (DGI)
Denmark

Tegla Loroupe
United Nations Ambassador of Sport
Long-distance runner, Olympic bronze medallist and tree-times Olympian
Kenya

Terri Byers
Principal Lecturer Sport Management
Coventry University
United Kingdom

Terry Monnington
Director of Physical Education and Sport
University of Warwick
United Kingdom

Tine Rindum Teilmann
Board member, Danish Paralympic Committee
member of the IOC’s Women in Sport Commission
Denmark

Tjeerd Veenstra
Director De Lotto
Chair Legal, Statutes & Members Committee, European Lotteries
Holland

Veerle De Bosscher
Lecturer in Sports Management
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Belgium

Wladimir Andreff
Professor Emeritus at the University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne 
Honorary President of the International Association of Sport Economists France
France

For further reference please contact Jens Sejer Andersen
Director, Play the Game
+45 20 71 07 01
jens@playthegame.org

All bidders expect a truly free, transparent and democratic election system. It is up to the International Olympic Committee, which was described as the “least accountable global organisation” in the 2008 Global Accountibility Report, to provide such an election system.

Several IOC members, talking to me under the condition of anonymity, have raised questions about the election system. They have criticized the so called Electronic Voting System (EVS) which was introduced by the IOC at the 111^st Session in 2000 in Sydney. 

“The principal reason for its introduction was to save time”, declares the IOC Press Office. “A manual round of voting and then counting of ballots took at least 30 minutes. Thus in a vote for the election of a Host City with 5 finalists, you could have up to 4 rounds of vote, thus over 2 hours of time.” 

But, where is the problem? Is it inappropriate to spend “two hours of time” in a democratic election after an extensive and expensive worldwide competition?

I understand that there has been no official demand by IOC members so far to change the voting system in Copenhagen. But there has always been a discussion. 

Do official IOC documents provide sufficient information about important Host City elections and give clear guidance?

Rule 34.3.2 of the Olympic Charter only states:

“The election of the host city takes place after the Session has considered the report by the Evaluation Commission.” 

In its “2016 Candidature Procedure and Questionnaire” the IOC administration declares:

1.1.12 Election of the Host City of the Games of the XXXI Olympiad in 2016

The IOC members vote in secret ballot. The ballot will have as many rounds as necessary in order for one city to gain a majority of votes. After each round of voting, the city with the least number of votes is eliminated.

But what exactly is a secret ballot? 

There seems to be a lack of definition in the Olympic Charter.

The two main questions are: 

1. Is the Electronic Voting System (EVS) to be considered as a “secret ballot”?
2. Is the EVS to be considered as a democratic election? 

Within the European Union, and Denmark is part of the EU, it is being debated whether electronic voting systems are generally democratic or not.

With respect to the Electronic Voting System there is another irritating point:

The IOC doesn’t make any difference between procedural decisions and important elections. “We use the same EVS system for all electronic votes. Of course some votes are taken by a show of hands”, declares the Press Office. 

In comparison to the IOC practice the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) prefers a fundamentally different approach. Nicolas Maingot, Head of FIFA’s Media Department explains: 

“First and foremost, it is essential to make the difference between decisions and elections. FIFA uses the Electronic Voting System for decisions, not for elections.”

FIFA has established the EVS at its 55^th Congress 2005 in Marrakech. “The EVS proved to be an efficient, reliable and tamper-proof tool to faster and easier conduct a voting at the FIFA Congress”, says Mr Maingot and repeats:

“The EVS is only a voting and not an election system. Elections are still conducted with traditional polling booths. Except for the cases when the FIFA President is elected by acclamation as decided by the 57^th FIFA Congress in 2007.” 

What about the results of electronic elections? 

“The results are archived at the IOC and stored indefinitely”, informs the IOC Press Department. “Nobody” is allowed to see the voting results by name (by IOC member), says the statement:

“It is a secret ballot. With the system, it is impossible to know what each member voted for.”

There is only one difference: “With respect to the vote on the inclusion of Sports in the Olympic programme a notary is involved with respect to the sealing and maintaining of the votes.” 

In comparison, FIFA describes its storage system as follows: “Regarding EVS, the results are being stored in a safe within the Home of FIFA for the duration of usually ten years. Regarding elections, the ballot papers are kept by the notary public. He/she notarises the correct process of the election and keeps the relevant papers with him/her.” 

To the question how many FIFA officials are allowed to see the voting results by name, Mr. Maingot replies: “In principle, all delegates are allowed to look at the detailed result if they wish to. This applies only to polls, not to elections which are secret.”

The IOC administration says: “The IOC is fully satisfied with the current situation. Note that we always have as a backup the manual voting system if the EVS was to fail or if sufficient members were to request for a manual vote.”

I understand that it is up to the IOC members to request a secret ballot with traditional polling booths at the Copenhagen Session.

The ISL bribery system: 138 million CHF for high-ranking officials in the Olympic world

A few weeks ago I had several discussions with IHF-President Hassan Moustafa.

He told me:

“We are a Handball-family. If anybody has a problem, we have to find a solution within our family – not outside the family.”

I have heard quotes like this before. My old friend Joseph Blatter once said:

“We don’t go to strangers. If we do have problems in our family, we use to solve the problems in the family. What happens in our family is not a topic for a jurisdiction outside our family. Regular courts are not a part of our family.”

In this picture we can see Joseph Blatter with his longtime friend Jean-Marie Weber. They are members of the family, both the FIFA-President, also a member of the IOC, and the man who has paid an unbelievable amount on bribes to other family members. They are longtime friends.

This brings me straight to my topic: The ISL bribery system: 138 million CHF for high-ranking officials in the Olympic world.

It is a serial story. It is a never-ending story. The story began in the sixties and seventies of the last century when Horst Dassler, the former boss of the sportswear-giant Adidas, formed his so called “sport-political department”.

Later, in the early 1980s, after the groundbreaking Olympic Congress in Baden-Baden, in the new age of Olympic commercialization and professionalism, Horst Dassler also created a marketing company: International Sport and Leisure – ISL.

And to give you another example: this company, ISL, was the first to get IOC-contracts to deal with the newly invented Olympic marketing program – TOP.

Don’t be afraid: I will not go back to the 1970s. Nor will I repeat the presentations I gave at former Play the Game conferences. But I would like you to understand that this also a never-ending journalistic story which, I think, began in 1992 with the book “The Lords of the Rings” written by Andrew Jennings and Vyv Simpson.

• In 2000 I presented some exclusive documents illustrating the circumstances under which the ISL-group was able to secure the biggest TV- and sponsoring-package of the time, worldwide: the contracts for the FIFA World Cup 2002 and 2006.
• In 2002 I presented exclusive, original documents about the collapse of the world’s biggest sport-marketing company ISL.
• In 2005 and 2007 we discussed the dubious circumstances under which Swiss prosecutors had to work in the ISL case.
• Now, in 2009 we can take a look at the ISL bribery court case in Zug/Switzerland, which took place in spring 2008.

This is the verdict – 179 pages. The charge was 228 pages. The problem is ironical:

According to Swiss law I am not allowed to show you all details of these documents. On the other hand: According to Swiss law it was allowed to pay at least 138 million CHF to high ranking sport officials.

In legal terms: bribery was not a crime in Switzerland at that time. The ISL system of paying sport officials was worked out – as it came out during the court hearings – together with KMPG, some of the most famous law firms in Zurich and was officially permitted by the Swiss Tax Authorities.

At the Play the Game conference in 2011, I guess, we shall probably analyze the next court case in the ISL-saga. I will come back to this later.

An impressive number of sport officials and assistants, who have worked for Horst Dassler, for Adidas and ISL-company, who were created and brought into their positions by the visionary Dassler, are still in their positions in the Olympic world: as Presidents of International Federations, as IOC members, as so called consultants, or – much more clear – as bagmen. One of Dasslers closest assistants was Jean-Marie Weber. The French born Weber was always described as THE BAGMAN.

What we got to know at least during the trial in spring 2008: Jean-Marie Weber was the man who paid at least 138 million CHF to high ranking sport officials in the Olympic world between 1989 and 2001.

After Dasslers early death in 1987 Weber became one of the top managers of the ISL-group. The group was united under the ISMM-umbrella in 2001 when the marketing giant collapsed because of missmanagement, greed and megalomania. It was the second biggest collapse in Swiss economy after the Swiss Air crash.

Jean-Marie Weber was always the bagman – until the bitter end. But it took decades to prove that description.

It is now proven. It is now documented in several court files.

According to lawyers and Judge Marc Siegwart in the ISL-trial:

• 120 million CHF were paid between 1989 and 1999.
• 18 million CHF were paid between 1999 and 2001 until the bankruptcy procedure began.
• Another 18 million CHF, by the way, were transferred to a bribery account, the secret Nunca foundation in Liechtenstein; but had to be re-transferred in spring 2001 because of the financial difficulties of the ISL-group.

So if you like, we can talk about 156 million CHF.

And we can speculate about much more money. Imagine: According to criminal scientists about 95 to 98 per cent of all corruption cases never see the day of light. They remain undisclosed for ever. The reason for this is based in the system of corruption: money givers and money takers do not usually sign contracts.

Here are some important questions – and preliminary answers:

• Who has got the money – the SCHMIERGELD, as they use to say in German speaking part of Switzerland?
  Only Jean-Marie Weber knows who got it.
• How much money did ISL pay in the 1980s?
  One can only estimate it.
• How much money was really paid to sport officials over more than 20 years – not only over a period of 12 years?
  One can just estimate it.
• How much money have the ISL-opponents paid, all those other marketing companies in the huge market?
  Same answer: One can only estimate it.
• How did the International Federations, how did the IOC, how did the so called Ethics Commissions react after the ISL-trial?
  Short answer: There was no action at all. I have asked several senior officials. I do not know any reaction which I have to take seriously. No investigations at all.

Before I come to the question “Who got the money?” I have to give you a short and simplifying overview of the whole ISL-case. Simplifying, because I am a journalist.

• May 2001: ISL/ISMM went into liquidation. Damage: more than 3 billion Euros owing more than 450 million Euros to creditors.
• May 2001: FIFA lodged a criminal complaint against ISL/ISMM executives (money from Globo TV and Dentsu – around 75 million Euros).
• May 2001: FIFA president Joseph Blatter told me in an exclusive interview: “I am not bribable. Otherwise you can chop off both of my hands.”
• 2002: Thomas Bauer, ISL-liquidator, wrote to a number of football officials. If they did not return black money payments he would sue them, Bauer pointed out.
• May 2003: Bauer opened civil complaints against approximately 20 sport officials.
• Feb 2004: Mysterious arrangement between Bauer and Jean-Marie Weber. The office of Peter Nobel, personal lawyer of FIFA-President Blatter, acted on behalf of Jean-Marie Weber.
• Mar 2004: 2.5 million CHF were transferred to the liquidators’ account. Mr Bauer withdrew the civil complaints against high ranking officials.
• Jun 2004: FIFA, officially and without a press release, ask to stop the criminal investigation. FIFA declared to be not longer interested in investigations. But the magistrate Thomas Hildbrand went on investigating …
• Apr 2005: … and finished his investigation in spring 2005.
• Jul 2005: Decision of the highest Swiss court, Bundesgericht (pdf, 10 pages, 500 kb). The court outvoted an earlier and lower court decision in which lawyer Nobel was forced to give information about the 2.5 million CHF payment, the payer and the “third party” for which he was acting for.
• Nov 2005: Raid in FIFA’s headquarters.
• Mar 2008: ISL/ISMM-trial in Zug (Strafgericht) against six former ISL executives.
• Mar 2008: Blatter told me: “We trust the Swiss justice!”

• Jul 2008: The verdict: Weber was fined for embezzling cash that he refused to account for. Two other people were given small fines for false accounting. Three more men were cleared.
• Nov 2008: Written verdict.
• Ongoing: Magistrate Thomas Hildbrand investigates who got the ISL bribes and who paid the 2.5 million CHF for Jean-Marie Weber.

One important question: WHO HAS GOT THE MONEY?

The answer is simple: senior officials of the contractual partners of ISL.

Five of the defendants claimed they had no idea who got bribes. They claimed fellow director Jean-Marie Weber organized the payments. He laundered them through foundations in tax heavens and a British Virgin Islands company (and many others), which distributed the money to companies and individuals. Most of the money was given in cash.

The ISL/ISMM-group had held longtime contracts worth billions of dollars with:

1. 1982-2006: FIFA (Football)
2. 1982-2004: UEFA (Football)
3. 1983-2009: IAAF (Athletics)
4. 1984-2004: CAF (Football)
5. 1990-2004: FIBA (Basketball)
6. 1996-2006: OCA (Asian Games)
7. 1997-2007: FINA (Swimming)
8. 1998-2007: CART (Auto Racing)
9. 1998-2009: ATP (Tennis)
10. 1999-2007: ITF (Tennis)
11. 1999-2014: LASI (Latin American Soccer Investments/Flamengo, Gremio)
12. Other former partners – and last but not least with the IOC: from 1983 until 1996.

The key for getting and holding these contracts was a gigantic bribery system.

But we can’t even find the word “corruption” in the Olympic Charta, the constitution which governs the IOC and runs the Olympic Movement.

The phrase “corruption” does not exist in the Charta. Nevertheless: corruption exists in the movement.

What is corruption?

There are a lot of definitions in different fields: juridical, theological, political, social-cultural, economical, ethical definitions. It is a wonderful playing-field for word-artists; but one does not have to be a lawyer to talk about corruption. Common sense is quite enough. That is why I prefer a very clear and very simple definition; it is the definition of the NGO Transparency International.

“Corruption is operationally defined as the misuse of entrusted power for private gain.”

I think it is simple enough.

Now you can see a list of recipients of the ISL-payments. It is just a part of the list: we can find individuals and companies. But it is only a small number of all recipients. We still don’t know more than 80 per cent of the bribe-takers. Probably we don’t know more than 95 per cent – it can just be estimated.

There are just a few well known names on the list: Nicolas Leoz from Paraguay, head of South American Football Federation CONMEBOL, and member of FIFA’s Executive Committee. Just a few hundred thousands for him. Mr Leoz denies any wrongdoing.

On the list we could also find the company Renford Investments. According to an investigation of the Swiss journalist Jean-Francois Tanda, Renford was owned by Ricardo Teixeira, President of the Brazilian Football Federation CBF, FIFA Exco Member, and his former father in law João Havelange, FIFA President between 1974 and 1998, IOC member since 1963 – the doyen of the International Olympic Committee. By the way: Once there was also a dubious transfer of a million CHF which was once accidently transferred to a FIFA account and was immediately re-transferred.

But coming back to the ISL bribery system, which was mostly a cash system. As I have said earlier: According to all defendants in the ISL court case Jean-Marie Weber is the only person who knows the names of all takers. Simply because he has organized all payments to sport officials. As I have mentioned earlier: The two parties in corruption cases don’t usually sign contracts.

Weber has always refused to identify recipients, telling the Swiss court authorities:

“These payments were confidential and I must respect that confidentiality.”

Here you can see a simple chart of the bribery system in the last years of the ISL-company. The chart is based on the court files and a chart which was presented by judge Siegler during the trial.

Christoph Malms, former Chief Executive, said that after joining ISL in the 1990s he was shocked to discover the business was built on bribes.

“I was told the company would not have existed if it had not made such payments”, Malms testified.

“I was always told they went to well-known decision-makers in the world of sports politics.”

Malms said kickbacks were usual in the sports marketing and sports political business worldwide. It was the style of the business.

They have used terms like: PROVISIONS. FINDER-FEES. Or even: SALARIES:

Hans-Juerg Schmid, former Head of Finances, said during the court hearing:

“If we hadn’t made the payments, the other parties wouldn’t have signed the contracts.”

“It was like paying salaries. Otherwise they (high ranking sport officials/JW) would have stopped working immediately!”

“The other side doesn’t want to be named, that is the very sensitive aspect of this business.”

During the hearing Malms’ lawyer Werner Würgler desperately attacked two FIFA Presidents and IOC members: Blatter and Havelange.

Würgler claimed that Joseph Blatter, back then General Secretary and now President, had approached his client Malms and told him, if ISL wanted to keep FIFA’s business, Jean-Marie Weber would have to stay in his positions in the company. If not, “it would be bad for ISL”.

Würgler also said that during the World Cup in France 1998 the outgoing President Joao Havelange made the same demand.

Würgler described the situation as follows: Anybody at FIFA who knew about the bribes and who was getting SCHMIERGELD could exercise great power over fellow officials. Würgler said: ISL became a private source of money for FIFA officials, virtually something like their private bank.

There are numerous well documented, strange operations within FIFA.

In their decision the three judges in Zug stated that FIFA “knew more than they told investigators”, that the behavior of FIFA-officials “was not always in good faith”, and some of their claims “were not credible”.

(By the way: that seems to be typical for FIFA. The federation and its current General Secretary Jerome Valcke was described in another court case, the Mastercard-Visa-decision as a kind of a serial liar.)

In the ISL case FIFA was ordered to pay a part of the trial costs, despite claiming not having misled the authorities.

We have got an astonishing documentation of a huge bribery system. Some experts are saying: This is the biggest bribery system in Olympic sports ever.

But nobody in the sporting world has taken any action. Not even against senior officials who were mentioned in the court documents.

Who should have taken action: Sepp Blatter? Havelange? IOC President Jacques Rogge?

By the way: Have I mentioned that Jean-Marie is still a member of the family? He is working with IOC members like Lamine Diack (President of the IAAF) and Issa Hayatou (Vice President of FIFA and President of CAF).

This picture is not a good one, I know. But it is a kind of a document. It shows Weber in December 2008 during an IOC meeting in the IOC headquarter in Lausanne. The IOC President who promised to fight all sorts of corruption with his zero-tolerance-policy is also to be seen in the picture:

As I said before: from a strictly juridical point of view the ISL-payments were in accordance with the former Swiss law.

But the payments were never in accordance with the rules of sport federations and organizations.

Olympic sport organizations are always arguing that their moral and ethical rules have to be much higher and harder than other rules.

The ISL-bribery case appears to be a strange example for the extremely high standard in the Olympic family.

• You want to read more? I recommend the Website of Andrew Jennings: Transparency in Sport.

In der Causa Weber habe ich soeben diesen offenen Brief an alle Mitglieder der OJA und einige andere interessierte Kollegen, Funktionäre und das IOC Press Office gesendet. Let’s talk about it. Have your say!

Von: Jens Weinreich
Gesendet: Sonntag, 14. Juni 2009 13:30
Betreff: open letter to members of the Olympic Journalists Association

Dear colleagues,

I have had a shock. My head is spinning. My legs are weak, my brain spins. I grip the edge of my desk and croak for a glass of water.

Coming back from Coventry, England, where I attended the stimulating Play the Game conference I was greeted by the new directory of the Olympic Journalists Association (OJA). I do thank Alain Lunzenfichter, Steve Wilson and Adrian Warner, Wakako Yuki, Karolos Grohmann and Pirate Irwin for their honorary work in the OJA Executive Committee.

But something in it leaves me trembling.

In the new directory I found my name alongside a new “associate member” of the OJA. His name? Jean-Marie Weber. In a moment, I’ll tell you more about Mr Weber.

But first, I am curious to know, who has elected Jean-Marie Weber? He has never been a journalist. But he does have one special role in the Olympic movement.

He paid the bribes. Huge bribes. Bribes for maybe 30 years to high ranking sports officials. Is this now a qualification for membership of the Olympic Journalists Association?

I can’t afford this membership fee. My children must be fed first.

Apparently he was elected in 2009. The Constitution of OJA says an “associate member” can be nominated by the Executive Committee. The definition of an “associate member” like Jean-Marie Weber is the following:

“This will be offered to any individual, newspaper, federation, television network, sponsor, association, promoter etc. … whom the Committee considers has made a contribution to the Association or whose professional duties impact on Olympics.”

Oh yes! Mr Weber’s activities have impacted on Olympic sport big time. Massively. He’s the man who bought sport with big bags of banknotes.

How about 138 million CHF in bribes? Or financing dreary publications like “sport intern” since the rest of us were babies?

By the way: It was interesting to read in the “Constitution Status” that there should be an annual general meeting. I was never invited to any. I have no idea if a meeting took place ever.

Just one last remark: This is not about criticizing the honorary work of other journalists. I do appreciate their work, especially if the purpose is to organize better working conditions for journalists in the Olympic circuit.

But: I don’t think adopting people who are working on the other side, the Dark Side, who some of us watched in a Zug court last year refuse to answer direct questions from the magistrates about who got the kickbacks?

I would very much like to get information from our Committee. Over to you guys.

Ironically my presentation at Play the Game last Wednesday in Coventry was about the biggest bribery scandal in the Olympic history. My topic was:

“The ISL/ISMM bribery system: 138 million CHF for high-ranking officials in the Olympic world”

For those of you who are not familiar with the ISL-bribery system: I will publish an extended version of my presentation on my sport-political blog tomorrow. Just one important point: The man who has paid 138 million CHF (according to judges, to defendants and lawyers in the ISL court case in Zug/Switzerland; see: court documentation) was the former ISL executive Jean-Marie Weber.

Is he really one of us? How on earth was he given membership?

I do think this is important so I am sending this email to every “full member” of OJA, to the IOC Press Office, the head of the IOC Press Commission and a few people who have recently discussed measures against corruption in sport with me in Coventry at the Play the Game conference: journalists, sport officials like Dick Pound, scientists and NGO-officials from 31 countries. I will also publish the letter on my sport-political blog.

Kind regards,
 
Jens Weinreich

Ich sehe gerade, dass Goijmans Webseite zum Volleygate nicht erreichbar ist und weiß gar nicht, ob er sie wegen juristischer Probleme aus dem Netz nehmen musste. Deshalb die Empfehlung zu Play the Game, wo zahlreiche Artikel, Links, Dokumente etc. zum Volleygate zusammen gestellt sind. Außerdem empfehle ich die Beiträge von Javier Cáceres (Süddeutsche) und Christian Putsch (Die Welt). Mario Goijman hat (s)ein Kapitel zum Buch “Korruption im Sport” geschrieben: “the breathtaking story of King Rubén and Queen Malú”.

Lange Vorrede, nun zum Thema: Goijman hat einen verzehrenden Kampf gegen den Sonnenkönig Acosta, die Schweizer Justiz und die Ignoranz des IOC ausgefochten. Er hat diesen ungleichen Kampf mit seinem Vermögen bezahlt, mit seiner Gesundheit, mit seiner Ehe, mit seinen Ehrenämtern. Nun wird er sogar von der argentinischen Justiz belangt, weil er damals, als Organisationschef der Volleyball-WM 2002, für die Vergehen seines Vertragspartners (FIVB/Acosta) gerade stehen musste. Gerade hat Mario Goijman in einer traurigen Email seine Teilnahme an der sechsten Auflage von Play the Game in Coventry absagen müssen.

So trifft es einen, der die Probleme nicht in der Sportfamilie lösen will, sondern Transparenz herstellt, Korruption aufdeckt und Gerechtigkeit vor Gericht einfordert. So trifft es einen, der sich selbst als Whistleblower und Sport Justice Fighter bezeichnet. Bitte unbedingt lesen!

Von: mario goijman
Gesendet: Dienstag, 9. Juni 2009 17:12
An: Jens Sejer Andersen; Ezequiel Fernández Moores, Pablo Vignone, Andrew Jennings, Henrik Brandt, Jens Weinreich
Betreff: RE: Last information for Play the Game speakers

Buenos Aires, Jun 9  2009 

Dear Play the Games friends. 

I have sad tears in my eyes and a great depression in my chest. Also when I sat in front of my Computer I can not hold my strong sensation of injustice and my loneliness.

Most of the people I know had forgotten what happened in Argentina and Switzerland with my fight inside my sport: Volleyball; they seem to remember that something unfair and not clear occurred since 2002, and the World Championship held in my country, and a following fight in Lausanne, but they don’t remember details about it, and the names of Ruben Acosta, Mario Goijman, Jean Pierre Seppey and the FIVB (International Volleyball Federation) are confused in their minds.

Thanks to Play the Games I had now the opportunity to remind them the facts, that made that organization to give me the PLAY THE GAME AWARD 2005, for my fight against corruption in Sport, and to know from first hand what happened after that, inside the FIVB, and mainly in the Lausanne Courts. 

But the Mario Goijman you knew in 2002 or 2005 is different now.

Damaged by the fight, being ignored by many of the silent (accomplices for omission) participants in the Volleyball World, damaged by their disloyalty to principles and justice, and dominated by dirty interest, or scared to intervene while and innocent, proactive and honest leader from a country very far away from the main world was lynched.

Damaged by the absurd decisions from of some Canton of Vaud Judges, and the unjustified long delays of others, pressed by the economic interest of a powerful organization, capable to pay with dirty money expensive lawyers that obtain with tricks and pressure such results in those that are supposed to defend the truth and the Justice,

Damaged in my small patrimony by very expensive legal fees, that had to be afforded alone, and the countless trips from Buenos Aires to Lausanne to attend hearings without any result.

Damaged by the lost of patience from the 2002 World Championship creditors unpaid, beside the money deposited in the FIVB treasury by sponsors and TV obtained due to my effort in Argentina; and using the warranties I personally gave to them to obtain the Argentina W.Ch. success, based in the contracts and rules among FIVB and Local Organizers, afterwards illegally violated by Acosta and Seppey, and still unpaid with the objective of damaging Mario Goijman, as revenge.

Some of these creditors initiated actions against me, as guarantor of their loans, notwithstanding their knowledge of the unfair situation.

Damaged at last by the weariness of many of my argentine colleagues over passed by the uneven and never ended fight.

Yesterday night, when I went to the airport for my trip to Coventry (on my birthday) to meet you and telling about my strong disappointment, I was stopped by an Argentine Order of Interdiction to abandon the Country in one of the lawsuits that began in demand of the 2002 World Championship credits that I candidly guaranteed in 2002, for which I did not asked for permission.

Thus, with tears of impotence I came back home to try to explain my frustration.

You will not have my story about lies and injustice, that  happened since 2005,  

With my best appreciation

Mario Daniel Goijman
Whistleblower, and sports justice fighter

• Minutes of Council Meeting No. 10, 31 January 2009 in Zagreb CRO, Sheraton Hotel Zagreb (pdf, 618 KB)

Es geht natürlich einmal mehr um die Reisekosten, die der schwer familiär veranlagte Pharao Hassan Moustafa (“Wir sind ein sauberer Sport!”) einfach nicht mit Quittungen belegen mag. Es geht aber auch – in diesem Kreise abschließend – um die Zahlungen des Deutschen Handball-Bundes einst an den russischen Verband, die der DHB-Präsident Ulrich Strombach, ein Jurist, und die auch das UDIOCM Thomas Bach, ebenfalls Jurist, als völlig normal und sauber ansehen. Strombach ist jener Top-Funktionär, der kürzlich gemäß Andreas Lesch (BLZ: “Der Witz mit dem Geldkoffer”) auf die Frage, wie er die Korruptionsverstrickungen von Hassan Moustafa bewerte, dem fragenden Journalisten entgegnet hat:

“Über diese Thematik werde ich Ihnen keine Antwort geben, weil ich Sie da nicht für kompetent halte.”

Die den DHB betreffende Passage aus den Council-Minutes (Seiten 5/6):

P. Mühlematter presented the proof of payment dated October 2008 amounting to 170,000.- CHF + 50,000.- USD to the Handball Union of Russia via a note of IHF Head Office staff member Anne Gsell. He asked why this sum concerning the 2005 WCh had been brought up in October 2008. Moreover he presented a letter dated November 2005 issued by former Managing Director, F. Birkefeld, and addressed to the president of the Handball Union of Russia, A. Kozhukhov, to confirm receipt of 50,000 USD in cash.

Since this matter occurred at a time when Frank Birkefeld was the IHF Managing Director, Dr Moustafa asked him to join the meeting for this point and to give a statement in front of the Council. He was given the floor, stating the following:

• The 2005 Men‟s World Championship was awarded at the 2002 Congress in St Petersburg. There were 3 candidate countries from Europe GER, RUS, NOR. NOR withdrew at an early stage. Then the discussion rose concerning a double candidature from Europe and RUS agreed to run for hosting the Women‟s World Championship but to withdraw regarding the Men‟s WCh. However, A. Kozhukhov complained about considerable expenses for the candidature and stated he would be unable to justify the withdrawal in front of the council of the Russian federation. Consequently a meeting between U. Strombach, President of the German federation, A. Kozhukhov and F. Birkefeld, acting as a mediator on behalf of the IHF, was arranged. The participants reached the conclusion that Germany will pay 50,000 USD as a compensation for RUS‟s expenses.
• When GER was not awarded the 2005 WCh they did not pay the entire sum. In 2005, the IHF, acting as a political and financial mediator, paid the sum to RUS and later on debited the GER account with the named sum as part of the final settlement of accounts of the 2007 Men‟s WCh in GER.

P. Mühlematter presented an e-mail sent by A. Gsell to Mr Jaus concerning the management letters issued by the external auditors and addressed to the Executive Committee. The procedure was that the management letters were sent via the IHF Head Office in Basle but that not all members of the Executive Committee did receive the management letters even though they are entitled to.

Treasurer M. Roca explained the handling of these management letters. They were not basically handed over to the Executive Committee but relevant issues were discussed within the Executive Committee.

P. Mühlematter did not accept this explanation; he reaffirmed that he was not handed over the management letter distributed prior to the Paris Council meeting.

In this context P. Mühlematter underlined again that major accusations currently dealt with by the public prosecutor could not be tabled to the Council at that moment.

In anderen Worten: Eine völlig normale Kiste.