Bribery/donation: Who knows?

NO plan hatched in hell will have angels as witnesses.

Simply put, this idiom, told to me by my late grandfather Batho, means whatever was done in darkness will come to light someday.

It always comes to mind whenever the $10-million payment hogs the headlines.

As Fifa continues with its efforts to cast itself anew in the eyes of a global public that views it as a house of corruption and skulduggery, developments keep reverting to the elephant in the room: did we or did we not pay a bribe?

New York court charging people with the new information that the $10-million is a bribe.

It’s a bribe is a bribe is a bribe, asserts Fifa.

It is a donation, a donation, a donation insists the South African government through sports minister Fikile Mbalula.

What Mbalula’s midweek press conference did was to tell us that a lot was happening behind the scenes.

As they seek to diagnose the bribe/donation disease, the Fifa lawyers, goes the gospel according to Mbawzeey, have sent questions to the three Drs JOK — Jordaan, Oliphant and Khoza. How many? I inquired. About 10, Mbawzeey answered. Asking what exactly? They were sent to them. Okay. And so the race was on for the 10 questions.

Phone lines. Some phones were off. Others rang and were dropped. SMS messages went unanswered. One said he was in a meeting. Another said he was consulting. The other just dropped the calls without answering.

Deafening silence it is. As they say, silence is not always golden.

Someone has to say something. Something substantial.

Sooner than soon. If it opens a can of worms or bribes or donations, so be it. Because remaining tight-lipped only serves to leave the conversation in the realm of suspicion.

And suspicion, by its very nature, has got an insatiable appetite for evidence.

Given that it is election season, the bribe/donation is inevitably graduating to a political hot potato for the Safa president who happens to be the mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay.

Political opponents are asking pointed questions about why Zurich has suddenly become a no-gone zone for one who was once a frequent visitor.

For a head of a football association not to venture out to Zurich on two elections leaves the matter open to interpretation. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Someday some lips will part, cut straight to the chase and take the nation into confidence.

Those lips will hopefully inform us why national director of public prosecutions Shaun Abrahams and his deputy Nomgcobo Jiba didn’t go to Washington on a sight-seeing mission. They’ve put a lid on their conversations with their counterparts.

Their lips will part with the passage of time. Lips must also part in the US. They told the world that they were investigating chicanery in World Cup bidding for over 24 years.

That period includes the one hosted by the US. One of their own, Chuck Blazer, is singing like a canary.

Now if it is crystal clear that Fifa are convinced that many of their executive committee members sold their votes to the highest bidders, did they develop a clean conscience and suspend their subterfuge when the US was awarded the 1994 World Cup?

And Italia ’90 before it. And France ’98. Korea-Japan 2002? The skeletons of Germany 2006 are out of the closet . . . Like the old man said, no plan hatched in hell . . .

Deafening silence it is. As they say, silence is not always golden