Mike Lee, a bid advisor to the Qatar 2022 team, had gone before the committee to discuss what he thought had gone wrong with the England 2018 bid. Except rather than give his insights into its campaign, the committee ended up asking him a series of questions about alleged corruption in the Qatari bid.
Firstly Damian Collins, a Conservative MP, revealed evidence submitted to the committee by the Sunday Times, which showed that two FIFA Executive Committee members, Jacques Anouma and Issa Hayatou, had accepted money (some $1.5 million each) from the Qatari bid team. As Collins suggested, the pair quite probably went on to vote for the Qatar bid, which won the final round of voting for the 2022 World Cup by 14 votes to 8 against the United States.
It raises significant questions about Qatar’s dealings, particularly in light of what happened back in 1998 when Sepp Blatter was first elected as FIFA President. It was then that significant funding and financial support from the Qataris, and Mohamed bin Hammam in particular, helped him to shock favourite Lennart Johannsson and win the FIFA Presidency.
Bin Hammam of course, is now running against Blatter in next month’s FIFA Presidential election, but more significantly in this context, he was the bid leader of the Qatari World Cup team.
But Lee’s response was intriguing. He was asked repeatedly about whether he was aware of such dealings. He responded that he was not. He was unaware of anything underhand. So the committee turned up the heat on Lee, and changed tack slightly. Conservative MP Louise Bagshawe asked Lee whether it was possible that such dealings could have taken place even if he was unaware of them, despite his significant role in the bid.
After being asked the same question and evading it three times, Lee finally defended himself, saying that as he had worked high up in the bid, he thought it unlikely. But it took him a while to come to the answer. The evasion was telling. What did he know of the Qatari bid team?
Serious questions are to be asked now, particularly in light of what Lord Triesman subsequently revealed. He launched straight into the allegations of corruption against Jack Warner. To those in the gallery, to hear his name first brought into question was hardly a surprise. Warner asking for money in return for votes? Who would have ever thought it?
Neither was the second name in the spotlight a shock. Nicolas Leoz, the head of CONMEBOL, the South American confederation, had been reported to have asked for a knighthood from the England bid team earlier in the week before denying these reports. Triesman’s first hand evidence of this request was revealing.
The evidence against Ricardo Teixeira, the Brazilian official and leader of its World Cup 2014 preparations, was sketchier, whilst Worawi Makudi was also accused of wanting TV rights from a friendly between England and Thailand to go directly to him.
It was damning. In the space of two hours, no fewer than six FIFA Executive Committee members had their integrity called into question. Given that two of the committee’s 24 members are currently suspended after being caught by the Sunday Times willing to take money for votes in the buildup to last year’s vote, a third of the select group who decide which countries get to host World Cups have credible corruption allegations levelled against them.
For FIFA this is now untenable. And it adds an interesting dynamic into next month’s Presidential election. Does Blatter go for Anouma and Hayatou and reveal corruption in the Qatari bid, which was headed by his rival, Bin Hammam? If he does and he proves that there were underhand dealings taking place, he can score a significant victory ahead of the June 1 election.
But then can he really do that whilst ignoring the allegations against Leoz, Warner, Makudi and Teixiera, traditional Blatter allies in FIFA power circles?
It would be a risk. But what is certain is the FIFA now has to act, to change and to address its problems. The credibility of the organisation is almost entirely diminished. It says it all that the man who led the bid which has the most questions of corruption hanging over itself, Bin Hammam, is Blatter’s only challenger.
