Own Goal Soccer bosses fall out over $10m payout
| As World Cup scandal unfolds, we reveal the damning letters that cast a pall over SA’s proud 2010 legacy
THE Fifa bribe scandal, now playing out like a blockbuster movie, has left South Africa’s soccer bosses at each other’s throats after a series of letters were leaked as to who authorised the $10-million payment.
This week, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula held a press conference to discuss the claims, which was meant to be attended by local football executives Danny Jordaan, Irvin Khoza and Molefi Oliphant.
Before facing the media, Mbalula held a number of crisis meetings behind closed doors with Khoza, Jordaan, Oliphant, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe and others.
But the meeting the night before Wednesday’s press conference ended so badly that Mbalula faced the media alone.
This week, Oliphant told the Sunday Times how he had lost his cool with Jordaan in one meeting because he felt “be- trayed” by his former colleague.
The first letter, which surfaced a week ago, was signed by Oliphant, and sent to Fifa general secretary Jérôme Valcke on March 4 2008, telling Fifa to put the $10-million in the control of controversial Trinidad soccer supremo Jack Warner.
Oliphant said that at one of the meetings, “I briefed them about [the leaked letter I signed] because the minister wanted to know what is going on. But, shockingly, Danny did not in any of the meetings disclose that he had in fact written a letter in December 2007 to Fifa.”
Jordaan’s letter — which predated Oliphant’s letter by three months and confirmed the government’s approval of the deal — only surfaced days later.
In his letter, Jordaan wrote: “I want to suggest that Fifa deducts this amount, $10-million, from the local organising committee’s future operational budget and deals directly with the diaspora legacy support programme.”
This week, Oliphant said he SILENCE IS GOLDEN: Danny Jordaan was “angry, shocked and disappointed that [Jordaan] had been quiet about his letter”.
This led to the standoff on Tuesday night, when Oliphant accused Jordaan of leaking that initial letter — and said Jordaan should have revealed that he HEAVYWEIGHTS: Former Safa president Molefi Oliphant with Irvin Khoza had written a letter weeks earlier to Valcke in December 2007 authorising the payments.
“It makes one understand why there were two payments in January three weeks after [Jordaan’s] letter.
“Now, the question is, why did he not disclose it on Saturday? Why didn’t he disclose it on Sunday to [Safa’s national executive] and to the former members?” asked Oliphant.
According to the FBI indictment for the arrest of seven Fifa bosses, this money was a THE PATRIOTISM CARD: Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula “bribe” paid in three tranches, the first of which took place on January 2, just weeks after Jordaan’s letter.
Jordaan has not returned any calls or responded to text messages sent to him by the Sunday Times this week.
Oliphant said that when Jordaan was asked in those meetings why he had not disclosed his letter to Valcke, he replied that he had simply forgotten.
“I said: ‘No, you can’t say you forgot when we had three meetings, and why should you remember this one written in March, written purportedly by someone else but the one which you wrote you forget?’ ”
Asked for comment by the Sunday Times, Mbalula played down any suggestion of conflict or heated arguments, saying this was an indication of internal squabbles in South African football circles.
“Former [local organising committee] members must stop being childish and behaving like children and put the country first. Their petty infighting will not help this situation and instead [will] fuel misinterpretation of this situation,” he said.
Jordaan’s letter was subsequently leaked, but Oliphant denied he was responsible for this.
The sequence of events has worried insiders.
One former local organising committee member who attended last Sunday’s meeting told the Sunday Times that “Jordaan never hinted that there was another letter in all those meetings we held”— suggesting this matter has escalated into a serious crisis. These rising tensions come as the scramble to identify the two local soccer bosses named as “co-conspirators” in the FBI indictment gains pace.
The FBI claimed that the two were “high-ranking officials” of the 2006 and 2010World Cup bid committees who had ensured that $10-million was given to Warner in exchange for his vote to host the 2010 event.
Asked if these two officials would be extradited and prosecuted, US Department of Justice spokesman Nellin McIntosh said: “Our office declines to comment on this issue.”