Panorama accuses FIFA World Cup trio of accepting bribes

THREE senior FIFA officials who will vote on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids allegedly took bribes in the 1990s, according to the BBC’s Panorama.

Nicolas Leoz, Issa Hayatou and Ricardo Teixeira took the money from a sport marketing firm awarded lucrative World Cup rights, the programme, broadcast last night, alleges.

The alleged bribes are included in a confidential document listing 175 payments totalling about $100m (€76,000). The three men did not respond to Panorama’s allegations. FIFA also declined to address the allegations.

Panorama also reports on evidence of a fourth senior FIFA executive’s continued involvement in the resale of World Cup tickets to touts.

The BBC has received criticism over the timing of the programme, which comes ahead of Thursday’s vote by FIFA’s executive committee on who hosts the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

But the corporation has defended the timing of the programme.

A BBC spokesman said: “The programme is in the public interest and shows some FIFA executives involved in making decisions about the 2018 bid have a history of taking bribes and FIFA has consistently failed to act.

“Delay until after the bid was not an option once it became clear that the winning nations might have been chosen by officials with a proven track record of corruption. The programme has uncovered new evidence linking current, long-serving members of the FIFA executive committee with systemic corruption.”

The alleged bribes to the three members of FIFA’s executive committee were paid by sports marketing company International Sport and Leisure (ISL) and date from 1989 to 1999, Panorama reports. The company collapsed in 2001. Fifa granted ISL exclusive rights to market World Cup tournaments to some of the world’s biggest brands and ISL received millions more from negotiating television broadcast rights.

A former account manager at ISL, Roland Buechel, said staff had long suspected bribes were being paid for lucrative FIFA contracts. “It is huge money, billions, that can be earned and all the sports marketing companies they fight, they want it,” Buechel said.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said in a statement the 2008 court case largely exonerated the former ISL officials. He said: “It is important to stress that no FIFA officials were accused of any criminal offence in these proceedings.”

The recipients of most of the money paid by ISL into accounts in Liechtenstein cannot be traced.

These latest allegations come after two of the 24 committee members were banned last month from voting in Thursday’s ballot. The bans came after The Sunday Times accused Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii of being willing to sell their World Cup votes.