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

by Heidi Blake

  Nineteen

  The Deal

  The master suite in Zurich’s Renaissance Tower was fraught with the urgent murmur of anxious voices in the 48 hours before Mohamed bin Hammam was due to appear before the ethics committee to fight for his life in world football. The Qatari’s aides came in and out of his opulent hotel rooms, gathering on the striped red and gold sofas around the orchid-laden coffee table to fret about his fate. Michelle Chai was furious. The feisty AFC aide thought her boss was wonderful and she hated to see him ‘getting screwed’, as she put it. Manilal Fernando was also fulminating at the ‘low level’ to which Chuck Blazer had stooped to discredit Bin Hammam. Sepp Blatter’s followers must be getting ‘desperate’, he spat. Jenny Be was sorrowful to see her employer injured. Amadou Diallo peppered the aides with worried emails from Paris, wanting to know how the boss was faring. Even the ever-affable Mohammed Meshadi was subdued.

  These were grave times. Less than six months after Bin Hammam had covered himself in glory by bringing the World Cup home to Qatar, the whole dream had been thrown into jeopardy. But somehow, the man at the centre of the storm was a picture of calm determination. The AFC women were in awe of his composure.

  ‘Boss is just cool about it,’ Chai would marvel. ‘That’s what I think is so great about him. I think he is so controlled because he doesn’t want anyone else to worry about him.’

  Jenny Be agreed: ‘He just doesn’t want us to worry.’

  Bin Hammam spent hours with his lawyer, Stephan Netzle, preparing his evidence for the hearings on 29 May. Jack Warner would be first in line, then Bin Hammam, followed at the end of the day by Sepp Blatter. The world’s media had swarmed into Zurich for the trials of three of world football’s most powerful men. The strategy Netzle had devised was to go for Blatter: this was a politically motivated attack designed to crush a presidential opponent promising to clean up the mess he had made at FIFA.

  As far as the Swiss lawyer was concerned, there was not a scrap of evidence that Bin Hammam had any knowledge of the brown envelopes that were handed out in Port of Spain. On the contrary, the person who was clearly alleged to have known was Blatter. Blazer’s deposition said Jack Warner had told him on the phone that he had informed the FIFA president about the plan to distribute cash gifts, and he had been ‘fine’ about it. Jack denied saying any such thing, so there were two possibilities. Either the allegation was right, in which case Blatter should be punished for failing to stop the illegal act from taking place. If it was wrong, then the credibility of all the accusations was undermined. This was a stitch-up, and the key to survival was to pull off a successful counter-attack.

  The day before the hearings, Bin Hammam was mostly absent. He had much work to do readying himself for his appearance the following day, and he had a private appointment that afternoon in London. He had been contacted by associates of Franz Beckenbauer the day before the allegations from Port of Spain had surfaced. The German football legend was firmly in the Blatter camp and he had been critical of Bin Hammam’s bid for the presidency, warning that it threatened to tear football apart. But his agent, Marcus Hoefl, had got in touch out of the blue on 23 May and asked to speak to Najeeb Chirakal.

  The pair talked on the phone the same day news of the allegations against Bin Hammam broke, and Hoefl’s secretary followed up with an email. ‘As discussed by phone with Marcus we would propose a meeting on Saturday between Mr Bin Hammam and Franz Beckenbauer,’ she wrote. Der Kaiser would be staying at the Hilton Metropole Hotel on the Edgware Road in London, and he wanted Bin Hammam to join him there at 4.30pm on 28 May, the eve of the ethics committee hearings. The Qatari was happy to make the trip from Zurich. ‘Mr Bin Hammam acknowledges the message and he confirms that he can meet Mr Beckenbauer at Hotel Hilton between 4.30-5.30pm,’ Chirakal wrote, once the group had landed safely in Switzerland. It was agreed that the pair would meet in the lobby, but no one else knew what they were there to discuss.

  Michelle Chai and most of her colleagues had said goodbye to Bin Hammam the night before. They had left him in fighting spirit, steeling himself for the biggest test of his professional life. One thing was certain: he was not going to let this politically motivated attack derail his presidential campaign. Blatter had to be stopped, for the good of Qatar, and for the good of world football as a whole. They waited anxiously in the more modest rooms of their own hotel a few kilometres away from the Renaissance, unsure whether they would hear from their master or be summoned to see him again before his big appearance the next day.

  Meshadi confided to the others that he had a sense of foreboding for Bin Hammam. The trusty bagman had always been wary of the idea of his master making a run for the presidency so soon after Qatar had won the rights to host the World Cup. Blatter was a wily old fox, and he would use any weapon he could find to crush his opponent. Meshadi had always worried that the president would use the threat of derailing the country’s cherished World Cup as leverage to destroy Bin Hammam’s candidacy. The aides knew Blatter had met the crown prince Sheikh Tamim weeks before, and they had heard he had been whispering in the Emir’s ear too, putting pressure on the royals to force Bin Hammam to withdraw and dangling the threat of a 2022 revote. So far, Qatar’s rulers had stayed loyal to the man who had won them the rights to host the world’s most prized sporting tournament. Meshadi and the others just hoped that wouldn’t change now these allegations were swirling over Bin Hammam’s head.

  The hour hand was progressing agonisingly slowly around the face of the clock on the wall of Michelle Chai’s hotel room. It was nearly 10pm and she had heard nothing from her boss all day. She wondered what he had been doing. It was strange to be out of contact for so long. Then her smartphone began vibrating. She leapt up and dashed across the room to pick it up.

  ‘Michelle,’ Bin Hammam’s voice sounded sombre. ‘I need to see you. Can you come to my hotel, please.’ Something in his tone unnerved her, but it would be impertinent to ask questions.

  ‘Yes boss, I will come straight away,’ she said.

  Chai hurriedly pulled on her coat, threw her phone into her handbag and sped out of the door. She ran out into the street and flagged down a taxi, directing the driver to take her to the Renaissance Tower. The ten-minute journey seemed to take ages. What had happened? Why did he need her so late at night? Please, oh please, don’t let anything bad have happened to Mohamed.

  Finally, the taxi eased to a stop outside the imposing grey skyscraper. Chai shoved a bundle of Swiss francs through the hatch and jumped out, hurrying through the revolving door and across the lobby to the lift which sped her up to the 15th floor. She hastened down the corridor to the master suite, knocked, and waited. After a few moments, Bin Hammam came to the door, and greeted her calmly. Inside, the side lamps suffused the sitting room with pinkish light and the curtains were open a fraction, giving an inky glimpse of night sky and the glowing cityscape far below. Bin Hammam was alone. He asked Chai to sit down, and handed her a piece of paper.

  ‘This has been drafted for me. We must release it tonight,’ he said flatly. ‘Can you check it, please?’ She stared down and saw that he had given her a printed email, sent from someone with a Qatari address and a name she didn’t recognise. Chai spoke the best English of anyone on Bin Hammam’s team, and he frequently asked her to check over his press releases and blog posts before he sent them. She began to read the words on the page, and the colour drained from her flushed cheeks.

  ‘I made the decision to run for the FIFA presidency because I was and remain committed to change within FIFA,’ the email said. ‘However, recent events have left me hurt and disappointed – on a professional and personal level. It saddens me that standing up for the causes that I believed in has come at a great price – the degradation of FIFA’s reputation. This is not what I had in mind for FIFA and this is unacceptable. I cannot allow the name that I loved to be dragged more and more in the mud because of competition between two individuals. The game itself and the people who love it a
round the world must come first. It is for this reason that I announce my withdrawal from the presidential election.’

  Chai felt like she’d been hit by a truck. How could this be? She looked up at Mohamed, who had turned away and was pacing contemplatively, with his head bowed and his hands loosely joined at his back. A flood of questions and protestations rushed through her mind. She loved her master as much as Jenny Be or any of the other aides who were always at his side. He was the finest, kindest, noblest man they knew. And he was also the most determined. What had happened that day to make him give up so suddenly? Who was this strange person in Qatar, who had drafted this terrible statement? There were a hundred thousand things she wanted to say. But as she studied his countenance, she saw it was no good. His jaw was set, his expression was opaque. She knew this look well. When Bin Hammam had made up his mind, he was implacable. He was the master, she was the servant, and nothing she could say would do any good.

  ‘So?’ he asked. ‘All is OK with the statement?’

  ‘Yes boss,’ she said quietly. ‘The English is all fine.’ He gave her a faint smile of gratitude.

  ‘Thank you, Michelle. Then we will send it.’

  The world woke up on the morning of 29 May to the news that Bin Hammam had pulled out of the presidential race. The reaction was one of astonishment, with Fox News reporting his decision to bow out as a ‘dramatic twist in the battle for the top job in football’ which left Blatter sailing unopposed towards recoronation. Over in London, Franz Beckenbauer took to the airwaves to welcome Bin Hammam’s withdrawal and call upon FIFA to unite behind Blatter. The Qatari corruption scandal was, he said, ‘a disaster for football’. He went on: ‘I hope when the first of June comes and the election will be over, then all the discussion about corruption is finished and FIFA can go back to normal. I don’t know what’s going on in the next days, but in general it’s my opinion it’s very, very bad.’ For Beckenbauer, Blatter was a hero who had steered FIFA through choppy waters and must be allowed to continue on his course. ‘He did a wonderful job. It’s not easy. FIFA is like the United Nations – we have two hundred and eight members. It’s not easy to handle, but I think Blatter and his staff are doing a wonderful job,’ he said.

  Bin Hammam’s aides and supporters were beside themselves. What could possibly have happened to make the boss throw in the towel in this way? Bin Hammam was slow to explain. His decision was made, and he preferred to maintain his silence. There were, at that stage, just a very few trusted friends who he let in on his secret.

  Bin Hammam told them that, the previous day, he had received a summons to visit Blatter on the FIFA hilltop. The invitation had taken him aback, of course. The two men had not spoken for months, except to exchange volleys of tactical vitriol in the media. But now Blatter wanted to see him, alone. Bin Hammam didn’t say whether he’d still made it to London to see Beckenbauer that afternoon, but at some point during the day he had found time to make his way to FIFA headquarters, as requested, with some trepidation. What did he want now?

  When he arrived at the president’s office, knocked, and entered, he told his friends he was astonished to find Blatter chatting easily with a senior member of his country’s royal family. He was invited to sit down, and Blatter was all smiles. He sensed instantly that some awful accord had been reached without him in this room, with its huge window giving out onto the playing fields outside, where in years gone by he had spent so many hours giving counsel to the president. Was it Blatter who first broke the news, or was it the man in the gold-trimmed robes? The memory of the meeting was a blur.

  He was told that these allegations of bribery were bad for FIFA, and they were bad for Qatar too. His candidacy was threatening to divide world football just at the time when it was more important than ever to maintain unity. It was time to put a stop to all this unpleasantness. Just as he feared, a deal had been done in his absence to make the whole mess go away. Bin Hammam was being ordered to do the decent thing for his country and withdraw from the FIFA presidential race.

  In return, Blatter would see to it that no harm would come to Qatar’s World Cup dream. There would be no re-vote, as the president had hinted days before, and the 2022 tournament would be untouched by the allegations swirling on all sides.43 Bin Hammam was aghast. He would do anything for his country, of course. He loved his Emir even more than he loved this game. But he had spent decades building up his reputation in world football, and he could not bear for his name to be dragged through the mud. The ethics committee was investigating him. How could he bear to stand down in shame with that hanging over him?

  ‘What about the case against me?’ he asked tremulously. ‘The case before the committee?’

  On this point, he said, Blatter was magnanimous. ‘If there is no candidate, then there is no case,’ he recalled the FIFA president had told him.

  Those words would linger in Bin Hammam’s mind for years to come. He repeated them to his friends often. ‘No candidate; no case.’ That was the deal, as he understood it. Blatter would see to it that nothing would come of the following day’s hearing. The ethics committee would find no cause to open a full investigation into Bin Hammam, and the case would be dropped. But only if he pulled out of the race that very night.

  Bin Hammam had later appealed to his Emir, he told his friends, but his country’s ruler was adamant that he should do as he was told. His candidacy was badly damaged and if he refused to go now then the country’s World Cup would be at Blatter’s mercy when he lost the election. Withdrawing would be a noble sacrifice for his country. He would be cleared of all wrongdoing and would emerge with his honour and dignity intact. It was the best thing for everyone – he had to see that. It felt to Bin Hammam like his world was collapsing, but if the Emir wished it then it must be done. So he told his friends he had no choice but to assent to the deal, allow his resignation statement to be drafted for him from Doha, and bow out of the race.

  Up on the FIFA hilltop, a shallow morning fog was slowly dissolving. Late spring sunlight trickled through the haze onto the landscaped lawns where the media scrum was waiting eagerly for the accused men to arrive. Inside, Petrus Damaseb was flicking one last time through the bundle of affidavits from Collins & Collins which would be the subject of the day’s hearings. The portly Namibian judge would be at the head of the ethics committee today. Its usual chairman, Claudio Sulser, had recused himself to avoid accusations of bias arising from the Swiss citizenship which he shared with Blatter. The events inside the committee room would take place in absolute secrecy, and the tapes and transcripts of the hearings would be kept under lock and key inside FIFA. They were meant never to be scrutinised by prying eyes outside.

  In his suite on the top floor of the Renaissance Tower, Bin Hammam was eyeing his reflection in the mirror as he lifted the collar of his starched white shirt and looped a deep red tie around his neck. This garment would always remind him of the most glorious moment of his life. It was the same as the one that he, the Emir and Sheikh Mohammed had all sported for the announcement of Qatar’s World Cup victory six months before. Their ties had been chosen to match the striking silk dress Sheikha Mozah wore that night, in the rich burgundy of Qatar’s national flag. That had been his proudest hour, standing shoulder to shoulder with his country’s royals in a display of national pride as they reaped the rewards of his devoted efforts. And now it had come to this: he had been sacrificed to save the dream he had delivered. The Emir’s words from the night before were still echoing in his ears. His hopes of leading FIFA were over. All that remained was to clear his name.

  Jack Warner was the first to appear before the committee that morning. The president of CONCACAF had already made it clear he would bite, kick and scratch if the hearing did not go his way. His parting shot before boarding the plane to Zurich the previous day was to tell reporters in Trinidad: ‘In the next couple days you will see a football tsunami that will hit FIFA and the world that will shock you. The time has come when I must stop playing dead
so you’ll see it, it’s coming, trust me . . . I have been here for twenty-nine consecutive years and if the worst happens, the worst happens.’ Warner had been caught entirely off guard by Bin Hammam’s resignation that morning, and he wondered what it all meant. Perhaps his friend from Qatar wasn’t made of such stern stuff as he’d thought, but there was no way Warner was going down with him.

  Once the CONCACAF president had settled into his chair and finished conferring with his lawyer, Judge Damaseb introduced himself and the rest of the committee, and opened the hearing. He explained that their job that day was simply to establish whether there was a prima facie case that the code of ethics had been infringed pending a fuller hearing at a later date, and then he set out the allegations from Blazer’s deposition. As soon as the opening formalities were over, Warner got onto his soapbox. ‘I want to talk about a thing called respect, sir,’ he told Damaseb grandly. ‘Respect, because that in some way impinges on why we’re here this morning. I want to say to you, sir, that the minute we as a people, as a nation, no longer honour respect as a virtue it is the beginning of the end of civilisation.’ Warner felt his general secretary, Blazer, had displayed a shameful lack of respect for him, ever since forming the conclusion that he had betrayed the US bid and voted for Qatar.

  ‘I have a general secretary in America paid full time for the last twenty-one years, and twenty-one years he has been with me as general secretary until the vote for the last World Cup,’ Warner fumed. ‘He sat next to President Bin Hammam and he told me that he was watching him and his book and he was seeing him ticking off people whom he saw supported his bid.’ A row had ensued after the ballot because Blazer thought Warner had voted for Qatar, and he blamed this falling out for the allegations about the cash gifts in Port of Spain. ‘He made the point to me that USA had a better bid than Qatar and he will never forgive Bin Hammam. He told me that and I said to him, that’s not my business . . . but if the general secretary had an allegation or allegations against me one would have thought that if from the fundamentals of good law, good principle, is for the accuser to confront the accused . . . That is the first thing about respect and I’m saying this because of lack for respect.’