by Heidi Blake
The Goal Programme had long been mired in allegations that Blatter had used the development cash to buy African support for his presidency in successive elections and, as the president’s placeman heading its committee, Bin Hammam understood its power to peddle soft influence only too well. In the two years before the World Cup ballot, three of the Exco voters’ home country associations – Nigeria, Cameroon and the Ivory Coast – were recipients of Goal generosity. Anouma’s football association had already received two tranches of $400,000 from FIFA to build this National Technical Centre in Bingerville, a city where children still died from starvation and poverty was commonplace. This third project was funded by another $400,000 from FIFA to improve the dormitory facilities and build a new gym at the centre. Indeed, Anouma’s pet scheme would receive a further $400,000 for an unprecedented fourth Goal project a month before the ballot. The record was seen as a badge of pride for Anouma.
A large crowd had gathered from far and wide on the centre’s football pitch for the event. There were the usual town bigwigs and two government ministers. But the guest list had been arranged by Amadou Diallo and as a result football officials from no fewer than 17 African countries had flown in to the Ivory Coast – including Amos Adamu. Diallo had also brought in Christian Karembeu, his ally from the Netherlands–Belgium bid who had himself been lobbying Anouma. Karembeu was pictured showing off his skills, juggling a football for the photographers. The ceremony started with Bin Hammam cutting a ribbon and unveiling a foundation stone. Then Anouma launched into a long speech expressing his appreciation and thanking almost everyone present on the pitch by name. There was only a fleeting mention of the ‘Qatar delegation’, but any savvy observer would have deduced that the men from the Gulf state were the most significant guests.
The members of the Qatar 2022 bid committee stayed out of shot of the many photographs that were published after the event. The bid committee’s attendance had been organised by Diallo, and Bin Hammam’s staff had hired their private jet for the trip – later sending the $105,000 bill for the plane to the bid. Alongside Bin Hammam on the jet to the Ivory Coast were the four leading figures in the bid: Hassan Al-Thawadi, the chief executive; Ali Al-Thawadi, his deputy; Hamoud Al Subaey, director of government affairs; and Sheikh Sultan bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, director of international relations. The bid committee liked to keep its distance from Bin Hammam publicly, determinedly maintaining that he was not associated with their campaign, but this was too good an opportunity to miss. By making their presence felt at the ceremony in Bingerville that day, the official Qatar bid team could piggyback on the goodwill Bin Hammam had secured by dishing out the Goal Programme cash to the Ivory Coast. This was the sort of advantage that came from having a powerful point-man inside FIFA: the perfect chance to rub shoulders with the African voters and remind them of Qatar’s generosity to their continent as they prepared to unveil the details of its bid proposal.
The ceremony in Bingerville had coincided with another happy event: Bin Hammam’s 61st birthday on 8 May. When he returned to Doha he found his inbox full, as usual, with gushing emails wishing him many happy returns. Flattered, Bin Hammam sent a global email to all his acolytes in the AFC thanking them for their kind messages, but one correspondent deserved special attention. He replied by letter to Fedor Radmann expressing his gratitude to the German fixer and his ‘lovely’ wife Michaela for remembering him on his ‘special day’.
Chirakal was busy chartering a jet to fly 14 members of Qatar’s bid committee to Zurich to hand over their 20-chapter bid book on 13 May, but there was another important matter to attend to before they took off. It was time for Bin Hammam to top up the coffers of that familiar rascal, Jack Warner. He’d known Jack for more years than he cared to recall. They had pressed shoulders in the premium seats at some of the world’s best stadiums; they had swapped stories at some of the world’s most tedious FIFA congresses; they had sparred on committees; and in happier times they had plotted long into the night to make sure their patron Blatter retained the presidency.
Jack was a live-wire, a coiled spring, as funny as he was outrageous: a useful friend but a dangerous opponent. Bin Hammam had seized a chance to quell this unpredictable bundle of energy in 2006 with his righteous outburst about Jack’s black-market ticket business in the ethics committee meeting. It should have proved fatal, but the man who styled himself by email as ‘d’survivor’ had brushed off the attack by calling in favours from his executive committee friends and walked away as ever with his head held high. There was no doubt: Jack Warner remained a force to be reckoned with. Bin Hammam therefore had done everything he could to repair the damage to their friendship, including opening his chequebook wide. It had worked, and Warner now called him ‘my only brother in football’.
The Qatari had taken Warner to China back in 2008, flattering his ego by calling on his expertise as a ‘consultant’ to the Vision Asia project and paying for his flights, hotels and chauffeur-driven limousines all the way. The pair were accompanied on their junket by the wily old lobbyist Peter Hargitay, and the group narrowly escaped disaster when the Sichuan earthquake struck the Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport – just moments after their private jet took off from its runway. The calamity provided a useful cover for Bin Hammam to spoon a bit more honey into Jack’s teapot. He wired Warner $250,000 that year as a goodwill gesture, ostensibly to cover ‘losses’ he had sustained to his personal property in the earthquake they had escaped. Now the great survivor was back for more.
Warner was a player. As the president of CONCACAF he held sway over the confederation’s three Exco votes, including his own. As we have seen, FIFA’s rules forbade any associate of a bid committee from giving voters any benefit which might appear to influence them in the bidding process. But there was no other way of keeping Jack happy and this was an important moment, with Qatar on the cusp of unveiling its bid book to the world. On 12 May, the day before the delegation flew to Zurich to hand over the document to Blatter, Najeeb Chirakal wrote to Amelia Gan and Jenny Be at the AFC to tell them Bin Hammam wanted the details of the bank account ‘where you have last made a transfer to Jack Warner’. Be responded attaching a document containing the CONCACAF bank details, explaining ‘this was the account we made the transfers to’. The money would be paid through one of the Kemco slush funds and even FIFA’s crack new investigator Chris Eaton would find it difficult to get to the bottom of one transaction among millions from an electrical company in a country as secretive as Qatar. So Chirakal ordered the Kemco clerks to pay the CONCACAF account which Warner controlled a further $200,000.
Two days later, Sheikh Mohammed and Hassan Al-Thawadi touched down in Zurich with 12 of their colleagues on a jet chartered for them by Chirakal in his capacity as a bid employee. They were chauffeured to FIFA headquarters, where they met Sepp Blatter and Jérôme Valcke to present their bid book. The tome revealed for the first time the full details of what the first World Cup in the Middle East would entail. It set out plans for 12 proposed stadiums, and promised that Qatar 2022 would be a carbon-neutral World Cup, using eco-friendly technologies and state-of-the-art cooling systems for stadiums, fan zones and training grounds. Spectators, players and officials would enjoy comfortable open-air conditions not above 27°C, the bid book promised. Qatar’s transportation system would be revolutionised with a new Doha International Airport and the new Qatar Metro high-speed rail network linking all 12 stadiums.
That day, Sheikh Mohammed released a statement saying: ‘The submission of our bid book today in Zurich is a historic moment for Qatar and its people. Today I am here not only on behalf of the Government of Qatar and all those involved in the game of football; I am here to represent the dream of each and every single boy and young girl of Qatar, to express and share with you the passion of our athletes and our fans who have supported our Bid from the very beginning, to manifest the desire of every family in our region who has shared our ambitions and hopes to bring the World Cup to the Qatari p
eople. A World Cup in Qatar will be a New World Cup, bringing people and different cultures together in the name of football. Our bid book sends a clear message: Qatar is ready.’
The bid team flew home the following day, on the jet chartered by Chirakal. Four days later, the fat sum of $200,000 plopped into Jack Warner’s CONCACAF bank account. The ever-efficient Chirakal sent a confirmation email back to Bin Hammam on 18 May 2010 enclosing a facsimile of the payment slip to Warner, with the note: ‘Dear President, please find attached the document for your information.’ Bin Hammam’s loyal aide would one day come to regret leaving a paper trail like that. While Bin Hammam was not officially associated with the bid, keeping the taint of his corrupt payments away from its leaders, Chirakal had signed an employment contract with Qatar 2022 earlier that year. Warner was one of the 24 voters who would be sent the bid book Qatar had just submitted to FIFA and asked to assess its merits ahead of the secret ballot that December. Now he would also have Bin Hammam’s $200,000 payment weighing on his mind – and it had been facilitated by an employee of Qatar’s official 2022 bid.
Qatar had suffered a few knocks since the controversy over its sponsorship of the Angola congress, but now it was time for fortune to favour the brave once more. While Bin Hammam was mulling over his payment to Warner, a major controversy had broken out which completely distracted the world’s media from Qatar’s behaviour. The England bid had imploded in spectacular fashion. It was a very English farce that would never have happened in Qatar. The World Cup was due to start in South Africa the following month, and the ballot for 2018 and 2022 was less than six months away. Lord David Maxim Triesman, the 66-year-old FA chairman who was leading the English bid, had met a younger woman for coffee in a London café a couple of weeks earlier. The woman, a 37-year-old civil servant named Melissa Jacobs, had dined with Triesman several times and the pair had exchanged some mildly flirtatious texts.
On this occasion, she had decided to record their conversation covertly and hand the tapes to a national newspaper whose photographer was waiting outside the café with a long lens. Over coffee Triesman, formerly a junior government minister, entertained Jacobs with gossip he had picked up while travelling the world promoting England’s bid. Soon after the meeting, Triesman heard the stomach-churning news that the Mail on Sunday newspaper was planning to publish his indiscreet comments to the world. Despite the FA’s eleventh-hour attempt to halt publication of the story with a court injunction, it became front-page news and Triesman was forced to fall on his sword immediately. The headline read: ‘FA Chief: Spain in bid to bribe World Cup referees.’
In the tape recording, Lord Triesman had told Jacobs: ‘There’s some evidence that the Spanish football authorities are trying to identify the referees . . . and pay them.’ He continued with an overly optimistic view of England’s chances. ‘I think the Africans we are doing very well with. I think we’re doing kind of well with some of the Asians. Probably doing well with Central and North America,’ he said.
Bin Hammam knew the African and Asian voters well, and there wasn’t a prayer of them voting for England. The chances of the self-styled home of fair play and moral rectitude securing the backing of men like Jack Warner and his North American cronies were even more laughable. His Lordship had continued by saying: ‘My assumption is that the Latin Americans, although they’ve not said so, will vote for Spain.’ He was right about that, and Bin Hammam was factoring the Latin voting bloc into his strategy. Then Triesman had returned to his extraordinary allegation about a Spanish plot to rig the upcoming World Cup in South Africa through bribery. ‘If Spain drop out, because Spain are looking for help from the Russians to help bribe the referees in the World Cup, their votes may then switch to Russia.’ This whole idea seemed preposterous to Bin Hammam. Spain were the best team in the world: why would they need to bribe referees? Lord Triesman later admitted he had merely been passing on tittle-tattle he had learnt from unnamed journalists.
The whole affair was acutely embarrassing for the stuffed shirts who ran English football, and Bin Hammam soon received a grovelling letter from Sir David Richards, the vice-chairman of the FA. ‘Dear president, on behalf of The FA I would like to sincerely apologise for any embarrassment which has been caused to FIFA and the national associations due to alleged comments attributed to Lord Triesman on Sunday in an English newspaper,’ the letter began. ‘In my capacity as Vice Chairman of the The FA I wanted to notify you personally that Lord Triesman has resigned as both Chairman of The FA and Chairman of England’s FIFA World Cup Bid Board. Clearly, the newspaper reports are highly embarrassing and I want to make clear to you and everyone at FIFA that the comments allegedly made by Lord Triesman do not in any way reflect or represent the personal, private or official views of the FA, England’s FIFA World Cup Bid Board or myself.’
Bin Hammam replied graciously. ‘I really appreciate your taking the time to explain the situation to me,’ he wrote. ‘Wishing you all the best and looking forward to seeing you in the future.’
This was too delicious. The England bid was finished. Its Exco member Geoff Thompson was rushed in to lead the bid as Triesman’s replacement, but that was all they needed. Thompson was universally disliked by the members of the bid, who said they felt his promotion of the country’s campaign had been decidedly lacklustre because he had been piqued at having been initially overlooked for the job as chair. Senior figures on England’s bid board complained privately that Thompson was ‘a terribly self-serving man’ who was doing ‘nothing to help us’. One was even heard dismissing England’s voter as being ‘just a blazer – a small-minded man from Chesterfield’. And now they were stuck with him. It was all very amusing to Bin Hammam.
What’s more, Spain were furious, Russia were incandescent and the members of the FIFA executive committee roundly deplored Lord Triesman’s indiscretions. While the FIFA family fulminated in the 48 hours after the story broke, Bin Hammam’s $200,000 bung slipped unnoticed into Warner’s bank account. The FIFA ethics committee, which had been asked by Blatter to keep an eye on the bidding process, launched an immediate investigation into Triesman’s claims, politely asking the Spanish and Russians whether they were paying bribes. Following their inevitable denials, the new ethics chair Sulser promptly declared that there was no evidence, and all was forgotten. This was the sleepy ethics committee Bin Hammam knew so well. They had not even involved their new investigator, but Bin Hammam was keeping a wary eye on Chris Eaton nonetheless. The cowboy-booted corruption fighter remained a potential threat.
The South African World Cup was now on the horizon and, on 28 May, an email arrived in Bin Hammam’s inbox inviting him to a black-tie event on the eve of the tournament at the Vodaworld centre in Midrand, Johannesburg. The message was from Samson Adamu with a haplessly glaring error in the opening line. ‘Dear Sir,’ the 26-year-old wrote. ‘As the distinguished President of UEFA, Kinetic Sports Management requests the honour of your presence at the first ever African Legends dinner. The African Football Legends dinner is an exclusive event to honour the continent’s football heroes.’ There was no reference to the Qatar 2022 bid as official sponsors. What had happened?
After the scheduled meeting in London with the Qatar bid in March, Samson had steamed ahead with the preparations for the dinner. He had sub-contracted organisation duties to a South African sports events company called Champion Tours, which quickly calculated that the dinner would cost a maximum of $220,000. The event was to go ahead on 8 July, two days earlier than originally planned. The organisers had been driven to distraction by the lack of coordination from Samson. No running order or table plan was put in place, and the young entrepreneur did not arrive at the venue until two hours before the event was due to start. At the last moment, he announced that an additional 30 places had to be included for extra guests, further instructing the organisers to hire eight hostesses and have special costumes made for them to wear. A seamstress was brought in the evening before the event and made to work through
the night to get the outfits ready.
On the evening of the dinner, Samson seemed less than self-assured as he stood to address the candlelit ballroom packed with the great and the good of African football. Admittedly, he was looking sharp in his well-cut black suit and a crisp white dress shirt, but he spoke haltingly as he welcomed the 300 eminent guests. At the tables were leading figures from the world of football including David Dein, the ex-Arsenal chairman, and Lennart Johansson, the former UEFA president. The members of the CAF executive committee kept their promise to ‘grace’ the event with their presence, as did around six FIFA Exco members. There were 20 famous former African footballers, including Bin Hammam’s friend Kalusha Bwalya, the former Zambian winger, and Jomo Somo, the former South African midfielder, who had been flown business class into Johannesburg to be honoured at the dinner.
The guests were welcomed by Issa Hayatou, the CAF president, and Kirsten Nematandani, the president of the South African FA. Samson had every reason to feel on edge. It was the first time he had ever organised an event on anything close to this scale. To add to the pressure, his father Amos Adamu was watching closely from a nearby table in full Nigerian costume as his son assured the glittering crowd that his company had ‘no commercial affiliates’ and was driven by one pure goal: ‘To celebrate with you the achievement of our past football heroes.’
As the guests sipped champagne, enjoyed live African music and their three-course dinner, they may not have stopped to wonder where their young host had found the funds to provide them with such a lavish evening of free entertainment. Mysteriously, Qatar did not make any attempt to promote itself as a sponsor and left no trace of its involvement with the dinner. An early guest list drawn up by Samson showed that a table of eight was initially reserved for Qatar 2022, but nobody from the bid team actually attended the event on the night. Something had spooked the bid in the months since they first sent Samson the contract. Perhaps it was a hangover from the row over the sponsorship of the Angola congress, or the fact that the reformed FIFA ethics committee – with a serious investigator at its disposal – were now actively looking into the bidding process. The official Qatar bid team would say, when questioned later, that they had backed out of the deal after belatedly considering the ‘relevant FIFA rules’.