by Heidi Blake
Bin Hammam had scheduled a press conference on 18 March in Kuala Lumpur at which he planned to tell the world that he intended to stand. Blatter, wily as ever, did his best to overshadow the event by jetting in to the Malaysian capital himself the night before on a whistle-stop canvassing tour of Asia. ‘I feel still full of energy and I’ve not yet finished my work in FIFA,’ he told his press pack. ‘I’m now in my thirteenth year of presidency in FIFA, and the thirty-sixth year to work in FIFA, so I’m available to the congress . . . If there is competition there is competition. I have support from different Asian associations, but I must have the support from whole family of FIFA.’
The next morning, Bin Hammam stepped up to the podium in a packed press room at AFC headquarters, spotlessly turned out in a crisp suit, lavender shirt and blue silk tie. Qatar’s national hero was a little longer in the tooth than he had been when he set off into the foothills of his World Cup campaign three years ago. Behind him was a larger-than-life photograph of an airbrushed version of the man at the podium, crouching over a bright yellow football in his shirtsleeves, giving a thumbs-up with a faintly strained smile. The word ‘FUTURE’ was emblazoned in huge white letters overhead. In front of the oversized glossy image of himself, Bin Hammam looked strangely small and shy as he glanced down at the English words his aides had prepared for him to utter. If he hadn’t been clutching the podium so tightly, his hands might have been shaking. It was strange to see such a rich and powerful man look so nervous.
Treason did not come easily. The FIFA president had once been his mentor, and there was a time when Bin Hammam would have walked the length of the desert in a sandstorm if it pleased him. He had even chosen Blatter over his own heir, staying at his side in that first election in 1998 when he thought his son was dying back in Doha. Of course, the ambitious Qatari had always dreamed of taking Blatter’s place, but he had dearly hoped that the president would one day stand aside and offer his blessing to his protégé as a successor. Bin Hammam knew now that would never happen and the old fox must be destroyed for the sake of Qatar’s World Cup dream. Still, it hurt him to thrust his knife into the heart of a man he could honestly say he had once loved.
Bin Hammam spoke in faltering English as he began his 17-minute speech. ‘Armed with my love and passion for football, believing that our game is about fair competition, I have decided to contest the upcoming FIFA presidential election,’ he proclaimed softly. There – now he had said it. With those few words, he had engaged Blatter in a fight to the death. The announcement wasn’t a surprise to the assembled journalists but they knew this was a significant moment: the man addressing them posed the most serious challenge the FIFA president had ever faced. The rustle of paper accompanied the incessant clicking of camera shutters as the reporters flipped through their notebooks hurriedly jotting down his every word.
The Qatari contender did have some surprises in store. The cornerstone of his campaign was a promise to make the bidding process for future World Cups more transparent. It wasn’t fair, he said, that the FIFA executive committee decided such an important matter on their own behind closed doors. It might give the fans the impression that the decision about where to host their beloved tournament was being stitched up improperly.
‘FIFA’s not a corrupted organisation, but the fact that a few people can take a huge decision affecting millions and hundreds of millions of fans, leaves always that sort of doubt and rumours around the members,’ he said. ‘The people who are working within the football community, they need as everybody hearing and listening more cooperation, more transparency, more fair distribution of the revenues. These are the changes which FIFA is needing.’ For the man who had so expertly exploited the secrecy of the World Cup ballot to stack the deck in his own country’s favour, this was an audacious pitch. But Bin Hammam had got what he wanted by wriggling through FIFA’s seamy slipways and he was ready to shut the door behind him.
The speech ranged through Bin Hammam’s driving ‘passion’ for football and his desire to usher in a new era of ‘ethical, democratic and transparent’ governance which would ‘keep FIFA . . . above any suspicions’. He was confident, he said, that he had done all he could to win the loyalty of enough FIFA officials to decide the vote. ‘I hope that Asia is going to be united behind me, but also the other confederations where I enjoy a lot of friendship and relationships, I hope also those people are going to support me. Blatter is an experienced person, he has made significant contribution to football worldwide but I believe there is a time limit for everything.’
The announcement made headlines around the world, and it drew mixed reactions within the FIFA family. Some were withering. Peter Velappan, who had served as the AFC’s general secretary for 29 years until 2007, said: ‘FIFA will be doomed if Hammam became the president. It would be very detrimental.’ The venerable Malaysian official poured scorn on the Qatari’s promise to bring in more democracy and transparency in FIFA. ‘These are the very things he has not done in AFC. There is no democracy in AFC. He is definitely an underdog but you can’t rule out his influence.’
But Bin Hammam had plenty of devoted followers around the world to drown out that sort of naysaying. One was Ismail Bhamjee, the former FIFA Exco member who had inadvertently spilled the beans about corruption in the World Cup bidding race to the undercover reporters from The Sunday Times the year before. Bhamjee’s son Naeem rushed off a rhapsodic email on his father’s behalf. ‘I cannot tell you the scenes in the Bhamjee household when we heard that you will be standing for FIFA Presidential election – we were jumping for joy,’ he typed. ‘Just the thought of you (a man with a heart of gold and the best of characters) leading World football is so exciting.’
Bin Hammam would not have dreamt of taking on the top job in world football without the backing of his beloved Emir and the custodians of his country’s cherished World Cup. In the days before his big announcement, he had discussed his presidential hopes in detail with Hassan Al-Thawadi and the pair had devised a plan. The former bid chief executive, who was now enjoying his elevation to an even loftier perch as secretary general of the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, had promised to help Bin Hammam by hiring a top Swiss lawyer to mastermind his campaign.
On 14 March, four days before the press conference, Andrew Longmate, general counsel to Qatar 2022, had followed up on Al-Thawadi’s promise. He sent an email to Najeeb Chirakal recommending a Swiss lawyer ‘as discussed between . . . Bin Hammam and Hassan’. Longmate noted: ‘He has not been formally approached to represent us but we can do so on request.’ The day after Bin Hammam entered the presidential race, Longmate came back to report a small hitch: a professional conflict had prevented the first lawyer he had recommended from working on the project. Instead he proposed ‘our number 2 choice’ – Dr Stephan Netzle, a Zurich-based attorney who he said ‘comes very highly recommended’. He went on: ‘Although we have not discussed specifics with Dr Stephan, it is assumed that his instruction will be directly with . . . Bin Hammam. Dr Stephan charges at CHF450 per hour plus expenses for his time, which we consider to be reasonable.’
Netzle was a highly distinguished Zurich barrister with a bony face, a crop of thick white hair and a grin so toothy it bordered on a grimace. He had decades of experience in commercial sports law, lectured at the University of Zurich and had served for 19 years in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Al-Thawadi could hardly have made a superior choice, and Bin Hammam was glad to accept his services.
Netzle received a phone call in March from lawyers acting for the Qatar 2022 committee, asking him to write a report on the legal framework for the FIFA presidential campaign. Once he had completed his task, he was introduced to Bin Hammam, and Longmate took a step back. ‘It is probably inefficient for me to sit between you both given the potential dynamic nature of this process, so I would suggest that you communicate directly,’ the bid’s general counsel wrote in an email. He asked the two men to keep the bid’s lawyers ‘in the loop’ and copy them into all c
orrespondence as the campaign progressed.
The Swiss barrister’s engagement letter, sent to Bin Hammam for signature by Longmate, contained a mandate to provide ‘legal advice and assistance related to your candidacy of the next presidency of FIFA’ and, presciently, ‘to represent you before the competent disciplinary bodies . . . eg the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne’. In the fullness of time, Netzle would find himself doing just that. But his work for Bin Hammam began with an assessment of the ‘legal framework which governs the election of the president of an association under Swiss law’.
On 29 March, Netzle sent Longmate the report he had commissioned, which was passed to Bin Hammam. At the end of seven pages of analysis came an intriguing paragraph. ‘Finally, in Switzerland corruption (eg a bribe payment) in the private sector is not at all part of Swiss criminal law and therefore not generally liable to prosecution,’ Netzle noted. ‘Although there is a provision in the Swiss Unfair Competition Act which prohibits corruption also in the private sector . . . non-profit organisations are not punishable. In documents relating to the respective Swiss legislative procedure FIFA is named as one of those organisations.’ FIFA was incorporated under Swiss law in such a way that would in effect give presidential candidates immunity from prosecution if they were caught paying bribes, according to Netzle.
The lawyer would later insist that his advice was ‘definitely not’ intended to condone corrupt payments by Bin Hammam. He said he had been asked by a Qatar 2022 committee lawyer to examine the law on bribery to see what recourse might be available in case Blatter tried to skew the election with bribes. Still, the document he had produced offered plenty of reassurance for the Qatari contender as he set out to topple Blatter with the same tactics that had won him his World Cup campaign.
The same day as Netzle submitted his report, Bin Hammam sent out his presidential manifesto, including pledges to increase FIFA’s annual grants to member associations from $250,000 to $500,000 and payments from its Goal Programme fund for poor countries from $500,000 to $1 million. His announcement on 18 March, ten weeks before the presidential ballot, had kicked off another frenzied vote-buying campaign. The rules in this election were different from the World Cup ballot: now, the presidents of all FIFA’s 200-plus member associations had a vote, rather than just the men on the executive committee.
While publicly promising to usher in a new era of transparency if he was elected, the Qatari and his band of loyal sidekicks were tearing around the globe on private jets showering scores of these would-be voters with largesse. The electoral methods were familiar – he hosted a junket in Doha, flew football chiefs in business class to secret summits at five-star hotels, dished out bundles of cash and used the same slush funds that had sealed support for Qatar’s World Cup bid. But this time there was a crucial difference. While Bin Hammam’s successful 2022 campaign was underpinned by a careful strategy deftly executed over two years, the presidential bid was thrown together in just over two months.
Bin Hammam ordered dozens of payments from his Kemco slush funds as he travelled the globe with Mohammed Meshadi, Amadou Diallo, Manilal Fernando, Worawi Makudi and Hany Abo Rida on board. The group zipped from country to country on their whirlwind campaign tour, travelling the length and breadth of Africa, and stopping off in cities throughout Europe and Asia, from Paris and Tbilisi to Beijing and Phnom Penh.
The campaign was given a significant boost when Bin Hammam was invited to join Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the daughter of the Emir, on the royal jet as she travelled between charity projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Cambodia at the start of April. Bin Hammam had already withdrawn $20,000 as a cash advance for the president of the Bangladesh Football Federation, back in March, and after the royal visit he received a heartening email from another Bangladeshi official. ‘I don’t like to take more of your time since your goodself is very busy to turn all stones to win ever the challenge. However, I would like to sincerely pledge my services of any type under your disposal. I would like to acknowledge that I am greatly indebted to your excellency in heart and soul.’
Those who were willing to pledge such unquestioning support were rewarded handsomely. On 1 April, Bin Hammam received an email in which Viphet Sihachakr, president of the Laos Football Federation, provided his personal bank details with the promise: ‘Any support from me please call any time Brother.’ Makudi40 was copied in to the message. Sihachakr had $100,000 paid into his personal bank account, which he would later claim was to pay for a technical centre in Laos. Rahif Alameh, the secretary general of the Lebanese FA, also received $100,000 from a Bin Hammam slush fund. Ganbold Buyannemekh, the president of the Mongolia FA, wrote to enquire whether the Qatari would be kind enough to fund his daughter’s university studies for a third year, and his wish was granted. The round sum of $40,000 was wired to his daughter’s accounts from Kemco.
Asia was Bin Hammam’s heartland, but he knew that Africa was the true battleground. Blatter was campaigning hard across the continent, promising to share the riches FIFA had amassed from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. First up on the Qatari’s African campaign schedule was a tour of Gambia, Cameroon and Gabon in the west. A jet was required, and Bin Hammam turned to Al-Thawadi to pay the bill of Chapman Freeborn, an air charter company. On 6 April, Royston Lasrado, the finance manager at Qatar 2022, wrote to Bin Hammam’s assistant: ‘Hassan has approved the payment to be processed. We have sent it to the bank this morning and it should be debited from our account this afternoon.’ Later that day he sent a second email: ‘The payment of USD 142,500 towards Chapman Freeborn was processed at the bank.’ The money was sent to Bin Hammam, who later used one of the Kemco slush funds to pay Chapman Freeborn’s bill. The money trail would come back to haunt Al-Thawadi, when he needed to deny any connection with Bin Hammam to shield the World Cup from the taint of scandal.
The African trip was a great success. Seedy Kinteh, the Gambian FA president who had already received $50,000 into his personal bank account from Bin Hammam in March, signed up to help the campaign for the presidential bid after the visit in April. The next month, Chirakal paid $9,000 to fund Kinteh’s business-class travel around west Africa to drum up support for the campaign among the region’s football association presidents. Kinteh wrote: ‘I was notified of the transfer you did to my account by my bank the amount is received with thanks and much appreciation. The money will be used to purchase ticket for my trips to my fellow national association presidents to consolidate on our campaign goals for Mr Bin [sic] to be the next president of FIFA.’
As well as visiting voters in their own countries, Bin Hammam used his favoured lobbying technique of flying African football bosses into the Qatari capital for a junket with luxury accommodation at the Sheraton. On 17 April, a delegation of African football chiefs – including Bin Hammam’s close allies during the World Cup campaign such as John Muinjo of Namibia, David Fani of Botswana, Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa of Swaziland and Kalusha Bwalya of Zambia – were flown in to meet the Qatari. The payments kept flowing. Four days after the junket, Bwalya received $30,000 into his personal account. Said Belkhayat, a top official at the Moroccan FA, also received $100,000. Later that month, Bin Hammam hosted another meeting of football bosses in Nairobi amid the gleaming silver columns of the five-star Panari Hotel lobby. The delegates flew in business class and were told they would have their flight tickets reimbursed by Bin Hammam on arrival.
By the end of April, Sepp Blatter was ready to reveal his hotly anticipated manifesto explaining how he would divvy up FIFA’s bumper World Cup spoils among his followers. He did not disappoint. The FIFA president promised he would plough a record $1.6 billion into the development of football around the world if he was granted a fourth term. That investment over the next four years matched the entire sum he had spent on football development so far during his 13-year reign.
In a four-page letter sent to the 208 FIFA member associations on 20 April, Blatter stated the need for ‘evolution n
ot revolution’ but promised greater transparency in world football. ‘In these challenging times FIFA needs first of all stability, continuity and reliability. We do not need revolution within FIFA but the continuous evolution and improvement of our game and our organisation,’ his letter said. ‘As you all know, today we are living in an insecure and troubled world. After the global financial crises of 2008–09, today we have to cope with other major global challenges including natural and nuclear catastrophes, countries in financial turmoil, the devaluation of leading currencies as well as political instability in many regions. This shows that FIFA as the organiser of global World Cups and world football’s governing body has to be prepared for the unexpected when it occurs.’
If Bin Hammam had his way, nothing would prepare Blatter for the shock he was cooking up. The Qatari was digging for dirt on his old mentor and waiting for the right moment to tarnish his name. He had hired a team of private investigators called Naduhl Sports Intelligence who reported back that they were intercepting phone calls and emails to monitor the FIFA president’s activities.
On 29 April Bin Hammam was sent an encrypted proposal from Naduhl that offered to provide ‘comprehensive intelligence’ on Blatter for a fee of €1.5 million. The package of services included ‘monitoring and protection’ and ‘ad hoc integrity testing’ of ‘promised votes’. A series of intelligence dispatches followed. One reported: ‘We have received information about media preparations aiming to bring BH into disrepute. Such media messages would have associated BH with corruption and even terrorism. This kind of attempts have been neutralised with immediate effect.’ Another claimed: ‘FIFA intends to have the ballots of JB [Joseph Blatter] voters tagged with a certain sign allowing control of election promises. Shortly before the election, the relevant symbol shall be determined and communicated to the relevant community of JB voters.’
