Probe puts Qatar, Russia World Cup plans at risk

BER N E • The threat of Russia and Qatar being stripped of the next two World Cup tournaments intensified last night after the man leading Switzerland’s criminal inquiry into their award declared he would have no qualms bringing about their removal.

The Swiss attorney general, Michael Lauber, also indicated yesterday that he had widened the scope of his investigation to include the allocation of previous tournaments and refused to rule out Sepp Blatter being dragged into his probe.

In more dramatic developments, FIFA’s chief prosecutor, Cornel Borbely, announced that he, too, stood ready to extend the list of suspects in his own inquiry into the discredited 2010 vote.

And it emerged that the full findings of his predecessor, Michael J. Garcia, would not be published until after the criminal investigation was complete. That could take years after the staggering scale of information seized by the Office of the Attorney General during two raids on FIFA’s headquarters, and acquired elsewhere, was laid bare by Lauber, during a press conference in Berne where he revealed it amounted to almost nine terabytes of data — the equivalent of a Word document of more than 750 million pages.

Breaking his silence over what has become the worst corruption scandal in sporting history since it was exposed three weeks ago, Lauber also announced that prosecutors had obtained evidence of 53 “suspicious” banking relations, in addition to 104 for which they already had details.

This goes far beyond the information unearthed by FIFA’s own investigation into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which formed the basis for Lauber’s inquiry and which the governing body confidently declared last year had not proven enough wrongdoing to justify rerunning the bidding process for either tournament.

“The world of football needs to be patient,” Lauber, whose powers far exceed that of Garcia, said. “By its nature, this investigation will take more than the legendary 90 minutes. It could go a month more. It could go years longer.”

Addressing the potential of his inquiry to destroy FIFA’s plans to stage the next two World Cups in Russia and Qatar, he said: “I don’t care about the timetable of FIFA. I just care very much about my own timetable. I don’t mind if, perhaps, this has some collateral (damage) somewhere else.”

With the separate FBI

investi- gation into FIFA corruption now examining the 2018 and 2022 finals, his words will send chills down the spines of those organizing them. Both Russia and Qatar have long denied any wrongdoing but were found by Garcia not to be entirely beyond reproach and will be understandably nervous about the consequences of further revelations.

Among the documents obtained by Lauber’s team are those relating to money paid for a friendly between Brazil and Argentina in Qatar three weeks before it was awarded the 2022 World Cup.

Also likely to be sweating on what is to come is Blatter. Lauber reiterated that the outgoing FIFA president, 79, who denies any wrongdoing, was not presently under investigation but warned that could change. “This is a dynamic process, so it could really go everywhere,” he said, confirming that Blatter and the secretary general, Jerome Valcke, were almost certain to be questioned. “There will be formal interviews of all relevant people. By definition, this does not exclude interviewing the president of FIFA and this does not exclude interviewing the secretary general of FIFA.”

Lauber refused to deny that his investigation had been widened to include the award of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, already the subject of an FBI probe into a US$10 million “bribe” paid to disgraced former FIFA executives Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer.

It is understood that the attorney general is ready to go wherever the evidence leads and will not limit his remit to the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. That could make FIFA regret initiating his inquiry by passing on the Garcia report, which it did on the advice of its own chief judge.

The governing body yesterday reiterated its stance that it was the “injured party” in Lauber’s investigation, rather than the subject of it, something he would only confirm was the case “for the time being.”

He also revealed that he had yet to receive a request from the FBI or Serious Fraud Office to share the Garcia report with them and warned that his own team would not “automatically” exchange data with other countries.

That team will be housed within a special task force led by the head of the OAG’s white-collar crime division, who will be assisted by specialist prosecutors, experienced experts in mutual legal assistance and a specialist forensic ID team from Switzerland’s federal criminal police.

Their findings could also lead to further action by Borbely, who was promoted after Garcia resigned in December and is currently probing the conduct of four officials. Pittsburgh (G.Cole 10-2) at Chicago White Sox (Samardzija 4-4), 8:10 p.m.

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