Net closes on Blatter
Swiss police prepare to quiz beleaguered FIFA chief over escalating World Cup scandal
MORE arrests are looming in the FIFA corruption scandal, the US said yesterday as it emerged that scandal-ridden Sepp Blatter is to be quizzed by Swiss police.
And in another twist in the storm engulfing world football, all three of the British high street banks implicated in the affair launched internal investigations into whether their accounts were used to move suspected bribes.
Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered were named in legal papers filed by the US Department of Justice linking them with millions of pounds in potentially criminal transactions involving FIFA and its officials.
Despite facing global calls to resign, Blatter, 79, was re-elected as FIFA’s chief last week, potentially adding another four years to his 17-year reign.
The American authorities refused to be drawn on whether Blatter was under investigation, though he is understood to feature on a list compiled by Swiss investigators looking into the awarding of World Cups to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022. He is due to be questioned as a ‘ person providing information’ as part of the probe, which has already led to t he s ei z ure of t housands of documents.
The continuing scandal has led Prince William to call on sponsors to push for reforms in FIFA. William, who is the president of the Football Association, said there was a ‘huge disconnect’ between the rules of fairness employed by those who play the sport and those responsible for managing it across the world.
FIFA has come under intense pressure after the US Department for Justice last week charged 14 suspects, including nine top officials, over alleged bribes.
Richard Weber, a prominent figure in the US investigation, said he was ‘fairly confident’ that more i ndividuals would be arrested.
The head of criminal investigations at the Internal Revenue Service said: ‘We strongly believe there are other people and entities involved in criminal acts.’
Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, said Blatter was ‘ bound to be questioned’ by the FBI and joined calls for him to stand down.
In a blatant show of defiance on Saturday, Blatter used a press conference to claim that he had ‘no concerns’ about whether he would be involved in the US investigation.
He also suggested that the timing of the arrests ‘doesn’t smell good’ and accused US authorities of trying to ‘interfere with [FIFA’s] congress’ after the country failed in a World Cup bid. He added: ‘The English were the candidates for 2018 and they lost, so it was really with the English media and the American movement that [the raids] came down.’
Culture Secretary John Whittingdale backed calls for the ‘nuclear option’ of an English boycott. But the head of English football Greg Dyke said that it would be ‘ridiculous’ for England to act alone and said that the support of other countries was needed to seriously affect FIFA’s authority.
Barclays and HSBC yesterday joined Standard Chartered in launching potentially damaging reviews into their links to the scandal.
The banks have not been accused of any wrongdoing, though all three are said to have handled suspicious transactions.
A EUROPEAN Championship every two years with invites to other big football countries outside Europe i s one of the proposals UEFA are putting forward in the fight against FIFA corruption.
The i nitiative would see all the top-ranked teams in world football take part in a competition that would not be under the jurisdiction of Sepp Blatter’s administration.
Blatter and FIFA have been tarnished almost beyond repair after the arrest of seven of the body’s officials and the indictment of 18 people on £100million worth of fraud, bribery and kick-back c harges in a United States - led investigation.
The radical plan was proposed by Denmark’s UEFA ExCo member Allan Hansen — one of the powerbrokers keen on UEFA breaking away from FIFA — at a meeting of Europe’s 54 territories and ahead of 79-year-old Blatter’s re-election for a fifth term as president last Friday.
And the fact that Blatter defeated his rival for the presidency, Prince Ali of Jordan, despite the latter having more than half of South America’ s CONMEBOL confederation voting for him, gives extra credence to Hansen’s plan.
Since the World Cup was first played for in 1930, the winner has always come from Europe or Latin America, whose football hotbeds of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Colombia might all take up a UEFA invite.
Hansen believes his plan would be attractive enough to take significant sponsorship and broadcasting rights — FIFA’s two important revenue streams — away from Zurich until FIFA reforms itself to the extent that UEFA feel they can take part in a global World Cup once again.
This will not happen until Blatter is deposed but the belief is growing that it will occur a long time before the finish of his latest four-year tenure in the top job. The English FA and SFA are two of the national associations committed to making t hat change happen. FA chairman Greg Dyke believes it is only a matter of time before the FBI or Swiss police, who have launched a criminal investigation into the campaigns to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in Russia and Qatar respectively, catch up with Blatter.
Dyke spoke out after US Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the arrest of FIFA officials last Wednesday and the indictment of 18 people connected with football ‘only the beginning’.
He has called on UEFA president Michel Platini, who made a personal plea for Blatter to quit on the eve of the election, to lead a co-ordinated opposition to the FIFA president.
UEFA are holding a special ExCo meeting and a discussion involving all their 54 countries in Berlin this week to plot their next move ahead of the Champions League Final between Barcelona and Juventus on Saturday.
Dyke said: ‘ I t does r equire r eal leadership and Mr Platini has to stand up. He criticised Sepp Blatter, he now has to l ead the opposition. There would certainly be us, the Dutch and the Germans demanding change.’ EVEN on a chilly evening in Crewe last night, the footballers of Qatar couldn’t escape the controversy surrounding their country’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup. Northern Ireland fans, in a crowd of 3,022 at Gresty Road, chanted loudly about bribery and waved tenners towards the pitch as their team played out a 1-1 draw with the Gulf state. More protests can be expected on Friday night when Scotland pl ay host to Qatar at Easter Road.