23/04/2012 Culture, Science, Education and Media
Strasbourg, 23.04.2012 – It is “difficult to imagine” that FIFA’s leadership would not have known of significant sums paid to certain FIFA officials in the context of contracts with collapsed Swiss sports promoter ISMM/ISL for World Cup television rights, according to the author of a report for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) due to be debated on Wednesday this week.
An addendum to the report “Good governance and ethics in sport” by Francois Rochebloine (France, EPP/CD), made public today, publishes the full testimony given by Thomas Hildbrand, the Swiss special prosecutor handling the 2001 collapse of ISMM/ISL, to PACE’s Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media at a closed hearing in Paris earlier this year. Mr Hildbrand provided detailed breakdowns of payments made to two persons whom he does not name for legal reasons, though he states: “both were top officials of FIFA and one still is”. He also indicates that one of them was the President of the Football Association of a South American country.
In his addendum, the rapporteur says it is “extraordinary” that FIFA’s leadership took no steps, whether internally or via the courts, to enable FIFA to obtain reparation of the sums involved, pointing out: “The money paid under-the-counter to certain unscrupulous officials should have been paid to FIFA.”
“The money managed by FIFA is money that belongs to football and not to its officials,” concluded Mr Rochebloine, adding that no sports organisation should become a place where “corruption and fraud are in practice tolerated and go unpunished”.
The full report – including the new addendum – now goes forward for debate by the plenary Assembly, which brings together 318 parliamentarians from the 47 Council of Europe member states, at 10 a.m. on Wednesday 25 April.
Following the debate Mr Rochebloine, together with the author of a separate report on combating match-fixing, will give a joint press conference (1.30 p.m. on Wednesday 25 April, Room 1, Palais de l’Europe, Strasbourg).