FIFA exec tied to World Cup payoffs

LONDON — A senior FIFA official and his family were paid almost $2 million by a Qatari firm linked to the country’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup, The Daily Telegraph disclosed Monday.

Jack Warner, the former vicepresident of FIFA, appears to have been personally paid $1.2 million by a company controlled by a former Qatari soccer official shortly after the decision to award the country the tournament.

Payments of almost $750,000 were made to Warner’s sons, documents show. A further $400,000 was paid to one of his employees.

It is understood that the FBI is now investigating Trinidad-based Warner and his alleged links to the Qatari bid and that the former FIFA official’s eldest son, who lives in Miami, has been helping the inquiry as a co-operating witness.

The awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was one of the most controversial decisions in sporting history. The intense heat in the desert nation has raised the prospect of the tournament being moved to the winter for the first time.

Although Qatar has repeatedly denied wrongdoing during the bidding process, it has long been suspected that the decision was flawed and several members of the FIFA committee have faced corruption allegations.

It can now be disclosed that a company owned by Mohamed Bin Hammam, the FIFA executive member for Qatar, appeared to pay $1.2 million to Warner in 2011, the year Warner stepped down from FIFA’s executive committee.

A note from one of Warner’s companies, Jamad, to Bin Hammam’s firm, Kemco, requested $1.2 million in payment for work carried out between 2005 and 2010.

The document is dated Dec. 15, 2010, two weeks after Qatar won the right to host the tournament and states that the money is “payable to Jack Warner.”

Warner’s two sons and an employee were paid a further $1 million by the same Qatari company.

One document states that payments are to “offset legal and other expenses,” but a separate letter claims that more than $1 million covers “professional services provided over the period 2005-2010”.

At least one bank in the Cayman Islands initially refused to process the payment amid fears over the legality of the money transfer. The money was eventually processed via a bank in New York — a transaction that is understood to have come to the attention of the FBI.