SAFA’S $10m TANTRUM
Though whistleblowers admitted to taking a $10m bribe to select SA to host the 2010 World Cup, football bosses say they’re in the clear
The SA Football Association (Safa) seems to be about as economical with the truth as Bafana Bafana are with the number of goals they score. This week, Safa threatened to sue journalists for reporting about a damning statement provided by its former CEO, Leslie Sedibe, which places Safa’s current boss, Danny Jordaan, at the centre of a $10m bribe to secure the right to host the 2010 World Cup.
Sedibe’s statement was reported by City Press, which included his claim that, facing a cash hole before 2010, Jordaan arranged a meeting at “Ajay Gupta’s house in Saxonwold, with the former president Jacob Zuma”. On December 20, Sedibe used the statement to open a corruption case with the Mondeor police, in which he also provided fresh detail of that $10m payment (unrelated to the alleged Gupta-jordaan meeting).
First, a refresher. The story is that in 2007, Safa paid $10m to Jack Warner, who, along with Chuck Blazer, ran the North, Central American and Caribbean football association, Concacaf. Supposedly, Safa paid the money to support the “African diaspora”. But the US authorities, who arrested a slew of Fifa officials in 2015, believed it was a bribe, paid for an earlier promise that Concacaf would vote for SA to host the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
Blazer did a plea deal, and later told a New York court: “I and others on the Fifa executive committee agreed to accept bribes in conjunction with the selection of SA as the host nation for the 2010 World Cup.”
A year later, Fifa expanded on this in court papers: “The South Africans offered a more attractive bribe of $10m in exchange for Warner’s, Blazer’s, and a third [executive’s] votes. Warner and his co-conspirators lied to Fifa about the nature of the payment, disguising it as support for the benefit of the ‘African Diaspora’ in the Caribbean, when in reality it was a bribe.”
In his statement, Sedibe fingers Jordaan as the man behind the $10m payment, saying he then tried to hide it.
There is context to consider. Sedibe was banned by Fifa in 2016 for his alleged role in match-fixing — a ban he is fighting. Also, Safa has been riven by politics for years.
Still, Safa responded to Sedibe’s claims with a disturbing degree of white-hot petulant fury. “Certain newspapers and journalists may be complicit in advancing [Sedibe’s] smear campaign and to this extent, the necessary legal action will be taken against [them],” it said.
When the FM sent questions to Safa spokesperson Dominic Chimhavi, he raged that our questions show “you are also pushing that very agenda”. He said any talk of a “bribe” was being pushed by those with a motive of “madness”. Chimhavi said Sedibe was wrong as “there were no Guptas back then”, and Kgalema Motlanthe was president. Actually, at that stage in June 2010, Zuma was president, and the Guptas were already a steadily growing cancer.
He also said, flatly, that “Fifa never called it a bribe” and added that “Dr Jordaan, Safa and any other SA stakeholder was cleared by Fifa and any other law agency around the world [of] any alleged wrongdoing”.
Now that’s problematic, even if you consider that up until Sepp Blatter left, Fifa operated like a gang of thieves whose word was worth less than that of an auditor of VBS Bank. More to the point, up to this day neither Fifa nor the FBI has issued any such public statement “clearing” anyone.
And as for Fifa “never calling it a bribe”, these are Fifa’s words: “The South Africans offered a more attractive bribe”, and “they disguised and funnelled the bribe money through the financial accounts of Fifa, member associations, and the 2010 World Cup local organising committee”. Does that repeated use of the word “bribe” sound like vindication?
Still, Safa does raise some legitimate issues. For example, Sedibe’s statement given to City Press was not signed, raising questions of whether it was real. And Chimhavi also asks: “Why is he doing this now? Is it because he’s bitter?”
Asked about this, Sedibe confirms it was his statement, but says he gave an unsigned version to City Press. “No, I am not bitter, but I’m very resolute. All I want is to clear my name, but Safa have refused to give me the documents on which those match-fixing claims were made, even though I have a court order compelling them to. They just ignore it.”
As for why he is doing this now, Sedibe says: “It has taken a long time for me to access the vast majority of the information I needed.”
Chimhavi also fumes that anyone speaking of a “bribe” is just seeking to “besmirch” football, because that $10m payment was a “government initiative”. Now, there is certainly evidence that the government knew about it: former president Thabo Mbeki, for one, spoke of the payment to the “African diaspora” years ago. But that doesn’t mean Blazer and Warner didn’t see the $10m as a bribe for their vote for SA back in 2004, when the host nation was announced.
Still, if Fifa’s ethics committee has cleared Jordaan and any South African, why hasn’t it told anyone? As Sedibe asks: “If they’ve been cleared, where is the evidence?”
Asked for evidence that the FBI and other authorities have closed investigations into the $10m, Chimhavi says:
“We will release it” soon. As they should. If, despite Blazer’s admission, all the South Africans have been cleared of their complicity in a bribe, SA deserves to know.
Until Blatter left, Fifa operated like thieves whose word was worth less than that of an auditor of VBS bank