FIFA's "For the Good of the Game" and "whatever's in it for me"
two senior committee members offered to sell their votes for cash.
It is less than two months before Fifa executive committee members will vote in a secret ballot to decide who has won the right to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
But Fifa now finds itself investigating claims of World Cup vote corruption, after Sunday Times journalists filmed two members prepared to accept money in return for votes.
But Amos Adamu (pictured below), one of the two men involved in the scandal, has denied any wrongdoing. Adamu told the Sunday Times he had been talking about business in Nigeria after the World Cup and said that his vote was not for sale.
The Fifa ethics committee will this week begin an investigation into a Sunday Times expose of two members of the 24-man Fifa executive committee, Amos Adamu from Nigeria and Reynald Temarii from Tahiti, who is the president of the Oceania Football Confederation.
Posing as English-based lobbyists for an American consortium wanting to take the World Cup to the USA, they secured tape and film evidence of Adamu telling reporters in London that he wanted $800,000, to be paid to him personally, to build four football pitches in Nigeria.
The deal was sealed last month in Cairo when Adamu gave his "guarantee" he would vote for the US in 2018. At the time it was still bidding for 2018. Adamu asked for the payments to be made through a relative who has a business in Europe. He also pledged his second preference for the US in the 2022 contest, but could not give his first. "I've already given my word to some other bid," he said.
What is serious for FIFA is that both men told undercover reporters that they had been offered cash to vote for other bidding nations.
The London Sunday Times, which published videos on its website, says Temarii wanted $2.3 million to fund a soccer academy in Auckland. The FIFA vice president also boasted that Oceania had been offered between $10 million and $12 million by supporters of two unnamed bidding countries.
Adamu’s position looks particularly precarious as he asked the $800,000 for a personal football project to be channelled through a family company. Press Association Sport spoke to Adamu today but the Nigerian terminated the phone call when asked about the allegations.
Reporters spoke to six senior FIFA officials, both past and present, who offered to work as fixers for England's World Cup bid. They all suggested paying huge bribes to FIFA executive committee members.
Among potential fixers who met the reporters were two FIFA committee members. Amadou Diakite (pictured left), on the referees' committee, advised the reporters they should offer bribes of $1m and he would make the introductions
In Paris, the other serving official offered himself for hire for up to £300,000. Slim Aloulou, chairman of the FIFA disputes resolution committee, told the reporters they should not pay "peanuts" suggesting bribing members 1 million pounds each member.
An investigation by London's The Sunday Times also uncovered allegations that supporters of two countries competing to host the World Cup have offered up to £750,000 a vote for personal "projects".
Former FIFA delegate Ahongalu Fusimalohi, who served for years as FIFA executive member for Oceania, warned that the failure of the England bid to offer such deals would be its downfall:
Fusimalohi is reported to have said: ‘England have got every reason why they should host the World Cup but they don’t strike the deals. You’ve got 24 members making that decision.
'Globally, if you don’t come up with something - although it’s corrupt it’s only corrupt if you get caught - these people will go all over the world to get it at any price. It’s sad but it’s true.’
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