Japan denies buying support from CONMEBOL
Awarding of 2002 World Cup also under the scanner
Asenior official of the Japan Football Association has denied allegations that it paid $1.5 million (Dh5.5 million) to the sport’s South American confederation for supporting its co-hosting of the 2002 World Cup, a newspaper reported yesterday.
“It’s impossible,” JFA honorary president Junji Ogura told the Asahi Shimbun of the report.
On Friday Spanish sports daily Diario AS said the JFA paid the money to the South American football confederation, CONMEBOL, after it backed Japan’s co-hosting with South Korea of the 2002 event.
The report came amid deepening scandals at the top of world football’s governing body Fifa. Fourteen of its officials or partners have been charged as part of a corruption investigation led by US authorities.
A source who worked at CONMEBOL for 15 years told the Spanish paper that the then-JFA honorary president Ken Naganuma sent the money in 2000. He has since died.
Japan and South Korea were chosen in 1996 as joint hosts of the 2002 event after fierce competition between the two nations.
Ogura said any such payment in 2000 would have been impossible since Japan had won the event four years earlier. “Besides, we don’t have such a sum of money,” he added.
The Yomiuri Shimbun quoted JFA president Kuniya Daini as saying the organisation would check whether the money was really sent.
Never heard
Kozo Tashima, a JFA vice president and member of the FIFA executive committee, told local media he had never heard about the alleged payment.
“I know nothing. I don’t know what to say,” he said. The JFA could not be reached for comment Sunday.
CIBC (First Caribbean International Bank) has meanwhile said it is carrying out a review of all its policies and processes associated with money laundering and fraud, after being named among several regional financial institutions in investigations for fraud at the Fifa.
According to the allegations, one of the bank’s Bahamas-based executives travelled to New York to pick up a $250,000 cheque from one of Fifa’s top officials, Chuck Blazer, and returned to Nassau to deposit the funds into Blazer’s CIBC First Caribbean account, reports CMC.
Authorities investigating financial wrongdoing at Fifa claim the transaction was part of a $10 million bribe to influence which country would host the 2010 World Cup.
Blazer has pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion and failing to declare ownership of the CIBC First Caribbean Bahamas account to US tax authorities.