The indictment was unsealed after Swiss police dramatically arrested seven Fifa officials who had gathered in Zurich for the world football governing body\u2019s elective congress, due to start on Friday. The arrests were at the behest of the US authorities, but in apparent investigations of their own, Swiss authorities raided Fifa offices.<\/p>\n
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- See full details of the indictment here<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Altogether nine Fifa or Fifa member organisation officials and five company executives are indicted by the US. Another four individuals and two sports companies have already been convicted quietly, after plea bargains.<\/p>\n
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- US indicts 14 officials in $100m Fifa corruption probe<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Where this leaves Jordaan is unclear. As head of the South African Football Association, he was reportedly due to fly to Zurich on Thursday to attend the congress \u2013 the same day he could be elected as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay \u2013 should the ANC succeed in mustering its small majority in the metro.<\/p>\n
Jordaan could not be reached for comment\u00a0before going to press and did not respond to text messages. When amaBhungane phoned the\u00a0ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa on Wednesday evening, the call was cut mid conversation, and he did not respond to text messages.<\/p>\n
“The Criminal Schemes”<\/strong><\/p>\n
The indictment alleges widespread bribery between officials of Fifa, of its member football associations, sports marketing companies and others.<\/p>\n
Under the heading \u201cThe Criminal Schemes\u201d, it sets out how South Africa allegedly bought three crucial votes by agreeing to pay $10-million (R120-million now). South Africa won against Morocco by 14 votes to 10.<\/p>\n
Implicated are the South African 2010 bid committee and, in particular, unnamed \u201cco-conspirator #15\u201d and \u201cco-conspirator #16\u201d. The indictment describes each as a \u201chigh-ranking official\u201d of both South Africa\u2019s unsuccessful 2006 and successful 2010 bid committees.<\/p>\n
The committees included Jordaan as chief executive and Orlando Pirates boss Irvin Khoza as chair. There were other \u201chigh-ranking officials\u201d on the committees too. Khoza could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
The indictment alleges two separate instances of South African bribery \u2013 both with Jack Warner, the controversial then Fifa vice-president from Trinidad and Tobago, as a counterparty. Warner is among the nine indicted officials. His sons Darryll and Daryan are among those already quietly convicted.<\/p>\n
Warner famously<\/a> got Nelson Mandela to visit his home country, where he ran for political office, in the run-up to Fifa\u2019s May 2004 vote to determine the 2010 World Cup host.<\/p>\n
“$10\u00a0000 stacks<\/strong>”<\/p>\n
In the first, undated instance, the indictment alleges that Warner sent a relative to Paris to \u201caccept a briefcase containing bundles of US currency in $10\u00a0000 stacks in a hotel room from co-conspirator #15\u201d, the South African bid official. The alleged purpose of the payment is not stated.<\/p>\n
The second instance has more detail. The indictment alleges that in the months before the May 2004 vote, Warner and \u201cco-conspirator #1\u201d flew to Morocco, where Warner allegedly accepted a $1-million offer to vote for that country.<\/p>\n
From the context it is clear that co-conspirator #1 was Chuck Blazer, the longtime Fifa executive member and general secretary of CONCACAF, the North and Central American and Caribbean football confederation. Blazer, like Warner\u2019s sons, was convicted after reaching an earlier plea bargain. He subsequently co-operated with the US investigation.<\/p>\n
The indictment alleges that after the Moroccan bribe offer, Blazer learnt of a change of plan. \u201cHigh-ranking officials of Fifa, the South African government, and the South African bid committee, including co-conspirator #16, were prepared to arrange for the government of South Africa to pay $10-million to the\u00a0Caribbean Football Union (CFU)\u00a0to \u2018support the African diaspora\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CFU is where Warner held sway.<\/p>\n
Blazer \u201cunderstood the offer to be in exchange for the agreement\u201d that he, Warner and an unnamed senior South American football official on the Fifa executive would vote for South Africa.<\/p>\n
Although the payment was to be to the CFU in name, Warner and his associates were the intended recipients. According to the indictment, \u201cWarner indicated that he had accepted the offer and told [Blazer] that he would give a $1-million portion of the $10-million payment to [Blazer].\u201d<\/p>\n
All three allegedly voted for South Africa. Afterwards, Blazer \u201cperiodically asked Warner\u201d about the payment. Blazer then learnt that \u201cthe South Africans were unable to arrange for the payment to be made directly from government funds\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Fifa “laundry<\/strong>”<\/p>\n
The indictment then describes a classic money laundering exercise: \u201cArrangements were thereafter made with Fifa officials to instead have the $10-million sent from Fifa \u2013 using funds that would otherwise have gone from Fifa\u00a0to South Africa to support the World Cup \u2013 to CFU\u201d.<\/p>\n
The indictment details how three tranches totalling $10-million were transferred from Fifa to CFU and CONCACAF accounts controlled by Warner in early 2008. Warner allegedly diverted \u201ca substantial portion of the funds\u201d to his personal use.<\/p>\n
Warner allegedly then paid three amounts totalling about $750\u00a0000 to Blazer \u201cin partial payment of the $1-million\u201d he had promised him.<\/p>\n
Significantly, the indictment gives details of the Fifa and onwards transfers, suggesting bank records will be among the evidence presented. The account is also corroborated by the separate charge sheet<\/a> to which Blazer pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n
The South African Football Association spokesperson Dominic Chimhavi was quoted on CNN on Wednesday as denying bribery. “Those individuals that brought the World Cup to South Africa were men of high integrity. Men like the late President Nelson Mandela and our former President Thabo Mbeki. The bidding process was never compromised.”<\/p>\n
* Got a tip-off for us about this story? Click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
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<\/a>The M&G<\/em> Centre for Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane) produced this story. All views are ours. See www.amabhungane.co.za <\/a> for our stories, activities and funding sources.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A $10-million bribe was allegedly paid by South Africa, laundered via Fifa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- US indicts 14 officials in $100m Fifa corruption probe<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n