by Heidi Blake
News that the report was finished was briefed out amid fanfare by FIFA’s spin doctors. Their strategy for batting off the allegations from the files had been to remind anyone who asked that there was an ongoing investigation into this matter, and that the ethics chamber must be allowed to do its work in peace. ‘The report sets forth detailed factual findings; reaches conclusions concerning further action with respect to certain individuals; identifies issues to be referred to other FIFA committees; and makes recommendations for future bidding processes. Pursuant to the FIFA code of ethics, the adjudicatory chamber will now make a final decision on the report and supplemental reports, including publication,’ the official press statement said.
Shortly after the report was handed over to Eckert, the journalists received a secret read-out of its contents from a well-informed source close to the ethics committee. They were told Qatar had been cleared of any serious wrongdoing and Mohamed bin Hammam’s role had been airbrushed out as they had feared. Russia had a clean bill of health, too. England and Australia had come in for the worst criticism. They were nonplussed. How could that be? Days later, officials who had been with Jérôme Valcke at a private meeting told the journalists the secretary general had briefed them that both World Cup hosts were in the clear and the 2018 and 2022 tournaments would go ahead in Russia and Qatar exactly as planned.
Two weeks later, the reporters were in Zurich. In a peerless act of self-satire, FIFA had decided to play host to an international conference on ethics in sport, and both Garcia and Eckert were due to be there. Blake and Calvert were looking forward to the encounter. They had thrown another grenade up the hilltop the Sunday before, revealing that almost the entire executive committee had broken FIFA’s rules by taking the $25,000 Parmigiani watches left in their São Paulo hotel rooms by the Brazilian FA that summer.
Sunil Gulati, the new US member, the Australian Moya Dodd and Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan had unwittingly caused acute embarrassment by handing back the gifts and alerting FIFA’s ethics committee when all their colleagues had simply pocketed the present. Garcia had been called in to investigate, but nothing had been done by the time The Sunday Times found out about the watches three months later.
Four days after the paper published the story, Garcia rushed out a statement. ‘The CBF should not have offered the watches, and those who received gift bags should have promptly checked whether the items inside were appropriate and, upon discovering the watch, either returned it or . . . reported the matter to the investigatory chamber. The FIFA code of ethics plainly prohibits such gifts.’ This sounded like remarkably stern stuff from FIFA’s usually meek ethics investigator. But would anyone be punished for breaking the rules? There was no need for any such unpleasantness. ‘The investigatory chamber will not pursue further formal ethics proceedings in this matter against officials who submit the Parmigiani watch they received from CBF to the secretariat of the investigatory chamber by no later than October 24, 2014.’
The story of how almost every single member of FIFA’s ruling committee had flouted the organisation’s own rules in the midst of the biggest bribery and corruption scandal in sporting history flew around the world. Lesser men than Sepp Blatter might have felt a touch abashed, standing up to address an international conference on ethics in sport days after it had emerged. But the FIFA president was unflappable. He opened the conference by claiming, without a hint of irony, that world football’s governing body had the best ethics structure in the world. ‘Since the reforms, we have had an exemplary organisation in ethics . . . we have two chambers . . . with independent chairmen. We are the only sports organisation which has this independent body for ethics, nobody else.’ There was a smattering of polite applause.
Shortly afterwards, Judge Eckert came to the stage. Small, smart and snowy haired, he was a picture of judicial rectitude peering down over steel-rimmed spectacles from the podium. He began speaking in German, sending the reporters scrambling for translation headsets, and after some general remarks about the importance of proper ethics procedures, he turned to the burning topic of the hour. Eckert announced that there would be no final outcome to the World Cup corruption investigation until the spring, at which point he would publish only the names of anyone found to have broken the rules and the sanctions imposed on them. No details of the specific breaches or the reasoning behind the sanctions would be released.
In short, the report Garcia had delivered to him earlier that month would remain under lock and key forever. ‘There is an obligation for secrecy for all members of the ethics committee and we will comply with this. You cannot expect anything to be disclosed from this report,’ Eckert said amid murmurs of consternation. ‘Nobody else has seen this report. Neither FIFA nor any other organisations have got this report and this is how it was meant to be . . . You can rest assured that we professionals know how to safeguard the report, and not give anyone access to it.’
For months, FIFA had been hiding behind Garcia’s forthcoming report to deflect questions about why they were disregarding the evidence produced by The Sunday Times, and now Eckert was saying that only he and his deputy would ever know what the investigator had found. After the speech, as the judge tried to leave the stage, he found himself caught in a media scrum being pelted from all sides with questions from reporters who had travelled from all over the world to find out what Garcia had discovered. He stalled and stonewalled and then his upper lip began to curl. ‘I understand, the media are greedy like that,’ he snapped eventually, starting to push through the crowd. ‘I will not start an ethics discussion now.’
Blake piped up from the middle of the scrum: ‘Mr Eckert, I work for The Sunday Times and we have a very large volume of evidence which shows that Mohamed bin Hammam made corrupt payments in order to win support for his country’s World Cup bid, and Mr Garcia has not looked at our evidence. Would you be prepared to consider the evidence that we have?’
‘Well I, I will not comment. Sorry. I will not comment, I, I . . .’ the judge stammered.
‘Can we show you our evidence?’
‘Not to me,’ he said.
‘Will you look at it, if we send it?’
‘No, no, not to me.’ He was now firm.
‘But you have the power to consider additional evidence, apart from the evidence that Mr Garcia has given to you,’ Blake urged.
The judge was stony faced. ‘I have to look what he is writing, and if I need there is more evidence to take, I will do it, but please, let me have the time to read it.’
Blake did not give up. ‘Mr Garcia has ruled out the role of Mohamed bin Hammam. He does not believe that Mohamed bin Hammam was working for the Qatar bid . . .’
‘No comment,’ Eckert cut in.
Blake pressed on: ‘ . . . and we can show you that he was working for the Qatar bid.’
‘No comment. But you know, I have banned Mr Hammam, lifelong. That was me. So . . .’
‘But you have not examined his role in the Qatar World Cup bid. That hasn’t been examined, and it needs to be examined because he played a critical part,’ Blake persevered.
Calvert joined in. ‘And as a result Mr Garcia hasn’t interviewed Mr Bin Hammam as we understand it, so therefore how could you ever get to the bottom of these allegations? It seems to us that the investigation itself is flawed,’ he said.
‘I will please you, let me say no comment,’ said the judge, making to go.
Watching in the wings, Garcia was enraged by Eckert’s clumsy pronouncements. He could see exactly how badly all this was going to play in the press. FIFA had placed a heavy load on his shoulders by telling the world for the past three months that his report would answer every question about the Qatar World Cup. Now it was going to be kept secret and he was going to look like part of the whitewash. It was a horribly invidious position. When the investigator stood up to address the audience himself that afternoon, he decided to vent his frustration with FIFA’s culture of secrecy.
‘What we need a
t this point is more transparency into the process . . . into charges, into decisions, into the basis for those decisions and into the facts,’ he said pointedly. ‘The goal has to be instilling confidence . . . that the process is working in a fair way.’ He warned that ‘there could be little support from a public that was so little informed,’ and then, sensationally, he called on world football’s governing body to publish the report that Eckert had just vowed to keep secret. ‘The more that is public and the more people can see what was done and disagree with what was done, then those issues can be resolved and the organisation can move on.’ Journalists swarmed after Garcia when he tried to leave the auditorium. Seeing the advancing throng, the investigator turned and sprinted down the corridor into the safety of the anteroom where the press could not enter.
The cosy relationship between the twin chairs of FIFA’s ethics chamber had just been shattered. When The Sunday Times reported Eckert’s remarks that weekend, there was an outcry. Prince Ali of Jordan began a small rebellion when he broke ranks to declare on Twitter: ‘In the interest of full transparency, I believe it is important that the much-anticipated report on the ethics investigation that is crucial to ensuring good governance at FIFA is fully disclosed and open to the public.’ A further five members of the executive committee followed suit and called for the report to be published. Then Garcia himself joined the fray, dispensing with ethics committee protocol to issue his own statement taking a pop at the judge. ‘Given the limited role Mr Hans-Joachim Eckert envisions for the adjudicatory chamber, I believe it is now necessary for the FIFA executive committee to authorise the appropriate publication of the report on the inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process,’ he wrote.
The growing tumult made for a stormy encounter when the executive committee met in Zurich at the end of September. Blatter had wanted to stamp down on the insurrection and initially tried to propose that only the 11 remaining members who had voted in the World Cup ballot should be allowed to decide whether Garcia’s findings should be made public. When this met with angry opposition from the rebels, the president offered an olive branch. He agreed to explore the possibility of persuading Eckert to produce a summary of the investigator’s work which could potentially be published if the names and identifying details of suspects and witnesses were removed.
Once peace was restored by this promise and FIFA’s rulers were heading for the airport, Blatter held an impromptu press conference giving his own wacky version of what had happened at the meeting. ‘Most of the requests coming for the publication of this report were from people [who] were not there on December the second when the decision was taken for the World Cups 2018 and 2022,’ he said dismissively. ‘And today in the meeting there was not any longer any requests from any of these members in FIFA to publish this report,’ he claimed.
Blatter then insisted that it was not possible to release the report because FIFA were ‘bound by the regulations’, and therefore it would stay under lock and key. Prince Ali and his supporters were infuriated to see the headline ‘Blatter insists World Cup bid corruption probe must stay secret’ when they checked their smartphones in the airport departures lounge. They got on the phone to FIFA instantly seeking a statement correcting Blatter’s remarks. Over the following weeks, the true picture emerged. Blatter was forced to concede that his executive committee wanted a heavily censored summary of Garcia’s evidence to be published, and Eckert would be its author. Some arm twisting had clearly taken place.
The familiar figure of one of FIFA’s rulers was half way through a glass of prosecco when the reporters arrived to meet him. Blake and Calvert were busy bottoming out the lobbyist’s claim that Blatter had done a deal with Qatar and the trail had led them to this meeting on a sunny afternoon in a foreign city. The man from the FIFA executive committee had agreed to see them on condition of strict anonymity. He enjoyed Blatter’s trust and was not prepared to risk his position at world football’s top table, but he could see that the Qatar World Cup decision was tearing FIFA apart and there were things he knew that he wanted to share. He ordered a fresh round of drinks and the reporters filled him in on their work so far on Qatar. Then Blake slipped in the first key question.
‘When the Qatar World Cup bid says Mohamed bin Hammam had nothing to do with their World Cup bid and was not working for them, do you believe them?’
He snorted. ‘Look at these people! They live on cloud nine,’ he scoffed. ‘They are wealthy, they are powerful, and they believe, which happens often when you are too powerful . . . that everybody has to agree with them . . . This decision was taken with active support from Bin Hammam in whatever role he was fulfilling.’ The reporters nodded as they took notes in shorthand and the football boss went on. ‘I am convinced that Bin Hammam also used financial means to get the necessary votes for Qatar. So the role he was playing in this entire game, and whether it’s possible to assign blame to the official Qatar bidding team, this is exactly a question which Garcia has to sort out.’
He moved on to the fallout from Qatar’s victory in the World Cup ballot. ‘At that point the question of the relations between the FIFA president and Qatar had to be clarified from the point of view of Qatar. So from their point of view, we either have to have a FIFA president or Blatter has to play our game. So as a consequence, many talks were held between the old buddies, the Qatar Emir and Blatter, and the result was that Bin Hammam had to be neutralised . . . Obedience is simply a duty there. So Bin Hammam does not do any act which is not in line with the Emir’s will. He might have a certain freedom but he fulfils the role of the Emir. And so, consequently . . . when they realised that Bin Hammam was a threat, they disposed of him. He had done his job so they disposed of him.’
‘And the Emir met with Blatter? There was a deal with Blatter?’
‘Yes, because in 2011 Blatter wanted to run as president, then suddenly there was another candidate coming up from Qatar . . . Blatter of course he knew of the danger of the threat. And it was clear to him that he had to make some peace with the Qataris, and this resulted in his encounters with the Emir, and as a result Bin Hammam was disposed of and this paved the way of Blatter to be elected in 2011.’
‘What did Blatter have to promise to Qatar to get them to make Bin Hammam withdraw?’ Blake asked.
‘It’s obvious. To push through with the World Cup decision. To promise not to do anything which would question this decision.’
Since they had met the lobbyist on the shores of Lake Zurich two months before, the reporters had tracked down three other friends and allies of Bin Hammam who recounted a near-identical story about the deal between Qatar and Blatter. One was a close aide who was with him in Zurich at the time the deal was done. Another was a second Westerner who had heard the story over coffee in the majlis. The third was formerly one of his staunchest allies within FIFA. The trail of evidence lit up further when they found the messages between Jenny Be and Victoria Shanti discussing how Blatter ‘gave his word’ to the Emir that he would not re-open the vote when Bin Hammam withdrew. And now they had confirmation from inside FIFA’s ruling committee that a pact had been made to save Blatter from a presidential challenge and protect the Qatar World Cup forever.
On 13 November, Judge Eckert produced a 42-page summary of the evidence in Garcia’s report. FIFA’s spin doctors had hit the phones furiously the day before to spread the line that Blatter wanted everyone to hear. That morning the BBC news bulletins were reporting on a loop that Qatar and Russia had been cleared of any wrong-doing during their World Cup campaigns and, in a delicious twist, the English and Australian bids had been singled out for the most criticism. Eckert’s summary was eventually released along with a short statement saying: ‘FIFA welcomes the fact that a degree of closure has been reached.’ But the moment of respite was short.
The critics barely had time to utter the word ‘whitewash’ before Garcia did it for them. Within a couple of hours of the release, FIFA’s investigator put out a statement disownin
g Eckert’s summary of his work, which he said contained ‘numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts’. The whole inquiry had descended into farce and FIFA’s attempts to stem the crisis by putting a limited amount of information into the public domain had backfired completely.
Reading Eckert’s assessment of the evidence on Qatar was a deeply frustrating experience for Calvert and Blake. The summary contained glaring omissions and snap judgements which smacked of expediency rather than rigour. Eckert said Garcia’s report had found that Bin Hammam only became a supporter of the Qatar bid as the ballot neared on 2 December and ‘the relationship between him and the bid team appeared to be somewhat distant.’ Bin Hammam’s payments to the African officials was explained away with the claim that the cash was intended to ‘influence their votes in the June 2011 election for FIFA president’ rather than the World Cup ballot. Of course, the summary made no mention of the many emails quoted in The Sunday Times which directly linked Bin Hammam’s largesse to the World Cup campaign, and not to the presidential race.
The judge inexplicably ignored the $450,000 Bin Hammam paid to Jack Warner before the World Cup ballot. Nor did he address the evidence that the Qatar 2022 bid had offered $1 million to Amos Adamu’s son to host the Legends’ Dinner. Eckert acknowledged in his introduction that Garcia’s two-year investigation started as a result of this story in The Sunday Times, but his summary never returned to the topic again. FIFA’s investigators had clearly found no answer to its central mystery: who eventually stumped up the cash for the dinner after the official Qatari bid pulled out?