Chung denies wrongdoing in payments to Haiti, Pakistan
SEOUL, Aug 19, (RTRS): FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon said on Wednesday that payments he made to Haiti and Pakistan in 2010 were “charitable donations” and any attempt to use them as part of a reported ethics investigation was “cynical and unethical”.
Responding to media reports that world soccer’s governing body was investigating the South Korean billionaire over the ‘disaster relief’ funds, Chung said in a statement he had been donating money to causes at home and abroad since the 1990s.
“Recent media reports allege that FIFA has started an investigation into FIFA Honorary Vice President Dr Chung Mong-Joon’s 2010 donations to disaster relief funds to Haiti and Pakistan,” said the statement.
“If these reports are true, we condemn this as a cynical and unethical effort by FIFA to misrepresent even charitable donations for political manipulation.”
FIFA’s ethics committee declined to comment on the matter, following their policy of not discussing any cases, or potential cases.
It is not the first time that Chung’s name has been raised in a potential ethics case.
In November, Chung featured in FIFA’s Ethics report into the bidding process for the World Cup in 2018 and 2022, in which South Korea made a bid to host.
The report followed an investigation led by US lawyer Michael Garcia and looked into letters that Chung sent, in late 2010, to FIFA executive committee members about a proposal to establish a “Global Football Fund” supporting foot- ball development.
“According to those letters, Korea intended to raise US$777 million from 2011 to build new football infrastructure and renovate existing facilities,” said the report, which added that the fund was linked to South Korea’s 2022 bid.
The Ethics report concluded that: “There are certain indications of potentially problematic conduct of specific individuals in the light of relevant FIFA Ethics rules.”
It added that FIFA ethics judge HansJoachim Eckert “trusts that the Investigatory Chamber will take appropriate steps if it deems such measures appropriate and feasible.”
A spokesman for Cornel Borbely, head of the Investigatory Chamber, declined to comment on whether any such steps had been taken.
“I’m afraid president Blatter has a kind of plan to damage my candidacy, but if he tries to do something bad to my candidacy I will try to fight that,” he said in the interview.
Meanwhile, FIFA will meet some of its leading commercial partners on Thursday to discuss reforms, a source close to soccer’s world governing body said on Tuesday.
The meeting will take place in Zurich, the source told Reuters, although no further details were available.
FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke said last month that Coca-Cola, Visa and McDonald’s had written asking for information about what was being done to clean up governance of the sport and offering to meet soccer’s ruling body.
Valcke’s announcement came after Coca-Cola and Visa urged FIFA to support the creation of an independent body to reform the way it is run.
McDonald’s said it had told FIFA that its internal controls and compliance culture were not consistent with the expectations it had for its business partners.
Coca-Cola confirmed in a statement that they would be involved. “The Coca-Cola Company will be participating in the working session with FIFA. We are not providing any further details at this time,” it said.
FIFA was thrown into turmoil in May when US prosecutors indicted nine soccer officials, most of whom had FIFA positions, and five marketing and broadcasting company executives over a range of alleged offences.