The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup

by Heidi Blake

  The 2018 bid had also offered Diallo a sweetener in the form of a success fee if he helped use his contacts in Africa. But Diallo had to ask the boss first. He enquired: ‘In the personal case of Diallo: the Belgians have proposed to me with Karembeu a premium in case of victory but I have said to them that I must ask your permission!!! What do you say?’11

  Diallo had plenty of time to discuss his side-deal with the boss as they would be meeting in Luanda. Chirakal made the arrangements as usual and Diallo flew out to the Angolan capital to mingle with his African brethren and arrange meetings with Bin Hammam ahead of his boss’s arrival four days later. Bin Hammam was still attending to important business in Doha. His guest on 25 January was one of the giants of African football, the great Liberian striker George Weah. The one-time World Player of the Year had plied his trade in the top tiers of French, Italian and English football, and was now dabbling in the game’s politics.

  The meeting with Weah went well. Later that day, Weah emailed Chirakal to confirm his agreement with Bin Hammam and offer his bank details: ‘I write because after meeting with the President, he told me to pass on my contact and bank details information to you urgently.’ No sooner had the email arrived at Olympic Tower than another one came in from one of Weah’s associates, Eugene Nagbe, a prominent Liberian politician. ‘George has repeatedly spoken of his support for our future plans in world football and we all look forward to your ascendency,’ he wrote, adding that ‘conservatively, an amount of about USD 50,000 will be needed . . . to lock the election down’ for Liberia’s football federation chief, the ‘Iron Lady’ Izetta Wesley. ‘Please be assured Mr President, that this is just a step in the bigger scheme of things to come. George have lined up most of the other former stars and the federations in Africa and South America so that when we are ready, your victory will be assured,’ Nagbe added. The next month $50,000 was paid into Weah’s personal bank account by one of Bin Hammam’s slush funds, ostensibly for his ‘school fees’.

  For Bin Hammam, the Luanda conference was a chance to build on the friendships which had been forged during the two junkets in Kuala Lumpur and Doha. There was a hectic schedule of meetings ahead of him at the Talatona Conference Hotel. It was a busy week. Knocking on the door to Bin Hammam’s suite were such familiar figures as John Muinjo, the Namibian FA boss, Seedy Kinteh of Gambia, and Ahmad Darw, the president of the Madagascar football association. Over tea and biscuits the chatter was convivial, and if the guests were a little obsequious, Bin Hammam was used to people fawning over him. The football officials had been impressed by Hassan Al-Thawadi’s Powerpoint presentation. They were delighted to learn that Bin Hammam was doing so much for their continent and, coincidentally, they had heard that he might be in a position to help them out financially. American dollars would be fine, and they were happy to supply their bank details.

  The delegates were quick to email Bin Hammam to remind him of his promises after the meetings in Luanda. Muinjo was first. ‘Your delegation and their presentations left a lasting impression on the African continent,’ wrote the Namibian. ‘I have also congratulated the Bid 2022 Ceo, Mr Hassan Al-Thawadi afterwards through e-mail correspondences. Mr President, I am drafting these few lines as a follow up to our discussion with regard to the financial assistance please.’12

  Seedy Kinteh was in dire straits again and needed cash to pay for his federation’s annual congress. Chirakal sent him a remittance slip showing that a transfer of $10,000 had been made to his personal bank account from Bin Hammam’s daughter Aisha. Ahmad Darw informed Chirakal that Bin Hammam had ‘promised to give me a help’ with his own re-election as president of the Madagascar FA. Asked by Chirakal how he would like the money paid, he provided two options: ‘by bank swift or I can take it in Paris with . . . Diallo.’ Arrangements were made for the bagman to meet Darw in Paris in March to hand over the cash.

  By the time Bin Hammam and his henchmen, Diallo and Meshadi, were in the limousine picking its way back through Luanda’s traffic jams on the return to the airport, they had every reason to pat themselves on the back. Angola had been the icing on the cake after 18 months of hard graft. He was confident that he had the four African votes in the bag.

  Seven

  A Crimefighter in Cowboy Boots Comes to Zurich

  The classy district of Ikoya, with its bustling designer shops and cocktail nightlife, is the most affluent area of Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous city. It is crammed with high-rise buildings and luxury apartments with starting prices of $1 million, affordable only to the country’s ruling elite or oil industry expatriates on expenses. Ikoya is Africa’s most expensive patch of real estate. Within its boundaries is the more sedate and extremely exclusive Park View Estate, with easy access to the golf course and country club that serve as a reminder of the city’s colonial past. This was the second home of Amos Adamu, the Nigerian FIFA executive committee member, when he wasn’t in the capital, Abuja. His wasn’t just an apartment in Park View – he had a mansion built in the style of a Spanish villa with pink roof tiles and white-rendered walls, standing in one acre of gardens. And, as if all this wasn’t enough of a symbol of wealth and status, the villa’s address left no doubt about the eminence of its main resident: Number One, Dr Amos Adamu Close.

  The Adamu clan had barely enough time to unpack their suitcases from the trip to Angola before an email popped up in Samson’s inbox. It was from Ali Al-Thawadi, the man in the robe Samson had met in Luanda, using his official Qatar 2022 email address. ‘It was a great pleasure meeting you and I hope you had a safe journey home,’ fawned the campaign’s deputy chief. ‘I would like to congratulate you on the fantastic event held by CAF, which I thoroughly enjoyed.’ That was generous of Al-Thawadi, given that his own bid had paid for the whole shebang, to the tune of $1.8 million. Next, he cut short the pleasantries and got down to business. ‘Can you provide me with the full name and address of your personal company in order for me to get the contract and scope of work prepared between the two parties. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.’ Al-Thawadi had been as good as his word. One million dollars was coming Samson’s way.

  Samson acted quickly on his side of the bargain. He did not want such a large amount of cash to be paid through his Nigerian company, which was registered at his father’s other home in the capital, Abuja. So he got on the phone to Daniel Magerle, a partner at the law firm of Magerle Jenal Stieger in the medieval Swiss city of Winterthur, and asked him to set up a company there. The fledgling entrepreneur may have been an ingénu in the world of business, but he was smart enough to know that a wire transaction to Switzerland might get less clogged up with red tape than if it went directly to his own country. International transfers of that size to Nigeria tended to set alarm bells ringing in banks’ anti-money-laundering divisions. Samson had just returned from Switzerland with his FIFA masters degree, and he trusted the Swiss to handle his big payday with their usual discretion.

  Magerle took up the negotiations with Ali Al-Thawadi the following day. ‘Dear Sir, I am contacting you on behalf of Samson Adamu,’ he wrote in an email. ‘I am representing and legally advising Samson and the association regarding the African Legend [sic] dinner. On behalf of Mr Adamu, I inform you that the name of the association is “Kinetic Sports Association”, an association under Swiss law.’

  The Qatar bid was eager to get on with the deal. Within days, a contract had been drawn up by their lawyer, Romi Nayef, and sent to Samson on 10 February 2010. Entitled ‘Legends of African Football – Gala Dinner – Sponsorship’, it set out Qatar’s offer of ‘One Million United States Dollars’ for the sponsorship rights for the dinner, which was to be held in Johannesburg on 10 June 2010 along with a three-day workshop for African journalists earlier the same month. The agreement was to be made between the newly created Kinetic Sports Association in Switzerland and a ‘private institution’ in Qatar ‘which is bidding to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup . . . and wishes to acquire certain exclusive rights in conne
ction with the events in order to promote its bid to host the competition’. The bid team was clearly unrepentant about locking out their rivals in Angola: all the other ‘competitor associations’ were to be banned from marketing at the dinner under the contract.

  The signatories on behalf of the bid committee were Hassan Al-Thawadi, its sharp chief executive, and its chairman Sheikh Mohammed, the son of the Emir. This was a dangerous move by the young leaders of Qatar’s official bid. Samson was the son of one of the 24 FIFA voters they were trying to influence, and he stood to make a gigantic profit on this deal. The costings for the event, when they were eventually calculated, added up to no more than $220,000, but he was going to be paid $1 million. FIFA’s rules forbade bidding countries from offering the voters or their relatives ‘any monetary gift’ or ‘any kind of personal advantage that could give even the impression of exerting influence, or conflict of interest, whether directly or indirectly, in connection with the bidding process’. But Samson was going to walk away from his deal with Qatar with a cool profit of $780,000, just for organising a dinner. It was a breach of the rules on a massive scale, and the official Qatar bid team had always been so careful to keep their hands clean until now. What possessed Sheikh Mohammed and Al-Thawadi to put their names to such a contract? Had their success in Luanda gone to their heads?

  Samson’s next step was to get the elders of African football onside. He flew to Lubumbashi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on 20 February to present his vision for the gala dinner celebrating the continent’s football legends to the Confederation of African Football executive committee who were meeting that day. In an email to Ali Al-Thawadi two days later, he enthused that the members had assured him of their ‘total support and willingness to grace the occasion’. He went on: ‘CAF’s support is good in that it adds more credibility and prestige to our event.’

  Back in Switzerland, his lawyer was compiling the paperwork for Samson’s new association and arranging a bank account to receive the payment. ‘The relationship to Switzerland would probably add a lot of additional credibility to the project,’ Magerle assured his client. Then the lawyer encountered a snag. UBS had refused to open an account for the new association, he explained to Samson, because: ‘Swiss banks are very sensitive these days and international pressure has increased on certain matters. I had to mention the nationalities of the persons involved. Nigeria is on the list of sensitive countries I am afraid. I would have to provide a whole list of documents and declarations to open the account.’ It was just as Samson had feared, but the canny Magerle quickly found a solution. He could ask Qatar to pay the cash into the client account of his own law firm.

  A meeting was arranged with Ali Al-Thawadi and a delegation from the Qatar bid at the five-star Intercontinental Hotel in London on Thursday 4 March. Samson would take his lawyer, and the deal would be sealed.

  For Bin Hammam, Angola had been a great success. His groundwork over the past 18 months had paid off handsomely and he was encouraged by the messages of support for the Qatar bid which flooded into his inbox from his African brothers and sisters. There were still ten critical months to go before the secret ballot which would decide the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, and his job was far from complete. It was time to step up his charm offensive a gear with the executive committee members whose votes he needed to win.

  His private jet would be invaluable over the next few months. From Angola, Bin Hammam jetted in to Zurich to attend a finance committee meeting, sending FIFA a $16,342 bill for his expenses on the visit. Then he was back on the plane again the next day for lunch with Michel Platini at UEFA’s modern university campus-style headquarters in Nyon, France on 3 February. The UEFA president’s staff had scheduled a group lunch, but Bin Hammam insisted on a private session with Platini. Even his trusted bagman Mohammed Meshadi was left outside as the two grandees sauntered into a small corporate dining room, where the food was the nearest thing to Michelin-standard that a staff canteen can be. It took just a little over an hour for Bin Hammam to make his compelling pitch for Qatar to host the World Cup, and impress on Platini that the Gulf state and his home country, France, could enjoy excellent relations. The two men gave each other a comradely hug, then Bin Hammam was back in his car heading for the airport.

  He was in a hurry because he had another important dinner lined up that evening back in Zurich at 7pm sharp. A giant Mercedes eased to a halt outside the foyer of the Baur au Lac Hotel and out stepped a man who looked as if he owned the place. It was Fedor Radmann, the debonair lobbyist who had accompanied the executive committee voter Franz Beckenbauer to Doha for the meeting with the Emir the previous October. Radmann had the appearance of a minor European royal straight off the yacht. His white hair was carefully coiffed, and a pink silk handkerchief flopped out of the breast pocket of an elegantly tailored dark suit that neatly disguised the expanding girth of a man in his late middle age. He paused briefly to exchange pleasantries with the concierge before heading off to the place where he did much of his business: the Pavillon restaurant in FIFA’s favourite hotel.

  There, among the ever so delicately arranged sprays of out-of-season lilies and purple orchids, was his old friend Mohamed, looking equally urbane in his figure-hugging black Nehru jacket as he sipped his sparkling mineral water. The two men had a lot to talk about and they got straight down to it after Radmann summoned the waiter and ordered himself an aperitif. Radmann was, of course, working for the Australians along with Andreas Abold and Bin Hammam’s old friend Peter Hargitay, so there was always the chance of picking up intelligence on what Qatar’s rivals were up to. More importantly, Bin Hammam wanted to keep reminding Radmann and Beckenbauer of their debt his country, which had done so much to help Germany win the contest to host the 2006 World Cup. When, as Bin Hammam anticipated, the Australian bid was eliminated in the early rounds of the 2022 ballot, he expected Beckenbauer to vote for Qatar.

  The billionaire couldn’t linger in Zurich: he had to rush back to Doha to greet another very important guest. He was hosting Reynald Temarii, the executive committee voter from Tahiti, and he intended to make sure he was given the best in Arabian hospitality. Temarii was travelling with the secretary general of his Oceania confederation, Tai Nicholas, but he had a lunch scheduled with just himself, Bin Hammam and members of the Qatar 2022 bid. He also insisted that he should have some further private time with his Exco colleague.

  These were encouraging signs. Temarii had publicly pledged his vote to Australia during the World Cup draw in Cape Town the previous December, but just like Beckenbauer there was every reason to target his vote in the later rounds, assuming the Australians crashed out early. So Bin Hammam gave Temarii the full royal blue carpet treatment. The Oceania voter was chauffeured to the striking white Diwan Palace overlooking the West Bay to see the Emir on 9 February. As was customary, Bin Hammam sought a corner of the vast state reception room and stood with his head bowed while Temarii was presented to His Highness. Humbled by the experience, the Pacific islander wished the bid well. Another good sign.

  Bin Hammam had to keep moving. Two days later, he was climbing the steps of his jet again. His first stop-off was Bangkok where he and Meshadi were welcomed by their friend and fellow intriguer Worawi Makudi, the FIFA Exco member from Thailand. Makudi was Bin Hammam’s long-time ally in FIFA and it was natural that the squat Thai colleague was a fully signed-up supporter of the Qatar 2022 bid. Bin Hammam touched down in Bangkok to scoop up Makudi and then it was up in the air again, bound this time for the most heavily populated city in the world: Tokyo. There the two men renewed their acquaintance with Junji Ogura, Japan’s respectfully quiet and gentle executive committee member. The entire official Qatar bid committee were also in town for the East Asian Championship. It was another chance to promote their campaign and appeal to Asia’s four voters.

  Still the punishing schedule did not let up. Soon Bin Hammam was once again burning aviation fuel as he sped to the South Korean capital, Seoul,
where he, Makudi and Meshadi met one of the city’s richest residents, Dr Chung Mong-joon, the final member of the Asian Exco quartet. That night they all dined in style in a revolving restaurant at the top of the landmark Seoul Tower, perched on Mount Namsan. The next day, Chung took Bin Hammam to meet the country’s premier, Lee Myung-bak, at the Blue House, an imposing presidential pavilion with a traditional Korean blue-tiled roof in the shadow of Bugaksan mountain. After his meeting with the president, Bin Hammam published a blog post on the Asian Football Confederation website extolling the unifying potential of the South Korean bid. ‘What impressed me during the meeting was the Korean President’s vision for football and his noble dream that it would bring peace to the two Koreas. No wonder, Korea’s bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup has his full and unqualified support,’ he said.

  The dinner with Chung was ahead of the two-day AFC congress, which was being held in Seoul that year. All four Asian bids were in the room, and it was important that Bin Hammam kept everyone happy. At a congress press conference on 17 February, he issued a rallying cry to FIFA, in his capacity as AFC president, to award the rights to host the 2022 World Cup to one of the bidding countries from Asia. He took the opportunity to speak publicly for the first time about his own country’s bid, telling journalists: ‘There are so many advantages if Qatar gets to host the World Cup . . . All the group matches can be played in venues which are within reasonable distance of each other . . . Secondly, Qatar will be representing the wishes and hopes of the Middle East.’ With Ogura at his side during the speech, and Chung watching in the wings, he still had to maintain the appearance that the AFC president was neutral, so he was diplomatic: praising Qatar’s rivals just as warmly. He would be equally happy if Japan or South Korea won, he fibbed. They had wonderful bids. Bin Hammam didn’t have much to say about the Australian contenders, but then they didn’t having a representative on the executive committee whose votes he wanted to win. His message, though, was clear. What he really wanted as AFC president was to see the World Cup come to Asia. It didn’t matter where.