The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup
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Warner rushed on to explain that he had arranged the extraordinary meeting of the CFU for Bin Hammam after Blatter had used the CONCACAF congress in Miami to announce a gift of $1 million to the confederation from FIFA. Recalling the scenes when Blatter announced the gift, Warner told the committee: ‘He said that he has given CONCACAF one million dollars to spend as CONCACAF wishes and we applauded and so on, and Michel Platini objected brutally afterwards because that was not given with any approval of the finance committee, of which I’m deputy chairman. I went to him [Blatter] quietly and said, President, that was good, but please go back and have it ratified by the finance committee because it is not correct that you have just given them one million dollars just so.’
Warner thought it was unfair that Bin Hammam had been prevented from making his case to CONCACAF by visa issues, so he had organised the special meeting of the CFU. But neither he nor his friend from Qatar had given out any cash. In fact, he said, the only gifts on offer at the special meeting had been laptop computers and projectors which had been sent for each association by FIFA. Warner addressed Damaseb directly: ‘I felt it was wrong for FIFA to use Mr Bin Hammam’s meeting to give delegates FIFA gifts but, be that as it may, I said, you have to receive from FIFA a laptop and a monitor and sign for having received it . . . That’s the only mention I made of a gift.’
The man from Trinidad was still racing on without a pause, more than 15 minutes into his speech. This sorry affair was all the result of sour grapes. ‘I understand Mr Blazer’s point, I understand the pain he suffers over the US loss to Qatar. I feel it here too,’ he said, beating his chest, ‘but I will not allow my office or me to be used to carry out any campaign against Qatar and or Mr Bin Hammam as a consequence; that’s not my business.’
At last, Warner was running out of steam. ‘Finally, before I take your questions . . . I will tell you that I did not know that Mr Bin Hammam would have resigned until this morning. I’m sorry, I’m sorry he has in some ways,’ he said. ‘I remain firm and intransigent in my view, my statement, I received nothing from Mr Bin Hammam to give delegates, I know nothing of any money, I never spoke about any cash gifts to collect and I am therefore saying today, that I don’t even know why I’m here. Despite all the regulations and points there, I wish I really knew why I’m here. Do you see the points I made? I repeat here, I don’t know why I am here. I thank you.’
Damaseb was flawlessly polite. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Warner, for your very important statement,’ he said, before moving on briskly. ‘I just want to emphasise a few things. The first one is to repeat what I said at the beginning of this procedure. That is, the reason we are here as a committee for FIFA ethics committee, is based on the file that has been handed over to us to determine whether there appears to be an infringement of the FIFA code of ethics. That’s the only reason we’re here. We want to guarantee you whichever way this thing moves forward . . . that you will be given every right to give all the evidence at your disposal, every right to confront those who accuse you of wrongdoing to determine at the end of the day your guilt or innocence.’
Warner leapt back to life: ‘I’ll get a chance to confront the accusers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which I have not done so far!’ he cried, and he was off again. ‘Sorry to butt in. For twenty-nine years I wore the FIFA uniform with pride. Yesterday I had to hide it in my suitcase because I don’t want people to see Jack Warner, vice-president of FIFA, because I would be embarrassed. Today I landed here in Zurich as a common criminal trying to avoid the media . . . what have I done to deserve that? All I’ve asked for is to ask you to practise fair play, let us hear Mr Bin Hammam, what is wrong with that, sir?’
The tirade continued for some time. Once Warner had settled down again, his lawyer was invited to present his formal submission rebutting each of Blazer’s claims point blank, and then it was time for the members of the committee to ask their questions. Robert Torres, a small floppy-haired judge from the tiny Pacific island of Guam, was intrigued by Warner’s falling-out with his accuser.
‘How would you describe your relationship with Chuck Blazer before the events outlined in his affidavit and report occurred?’ he asked.
‘Up to the World Cup, just before the vote for the World Cup, it was excellent,’ Warner replied. ‘After that it was atrocious. In fact, the president of the US Soccer Federation, who is a member of the executive committee, stopped talking to me the day after.’
Then Sondre Kaafjord, a startlingly sallow Norwegian football official, wanted to know what had happened at the end of Bin Hammam’s speech to delegates in Port of Spain.
‘After the meeting on the tenth of May, the delegates were told to – according to the papers – they were told to go to a boardroom . . .’ he began.
‘Told by whom?’ Warner jumped in.
‘That was my question . . . In the papers it’s written that they were told to go to the boardroom to collect gifts. You have . . .’
Warner butted in again. ‘That never transpired, sir!’
‘Just let me finish,’ Kaafjord snapped.
‘Okay, sorry. My apologies.’
‘You have denied that there were any gifts,’ Kaafjord continued. ‘Do you also deny that there was such an arrangement after the meeting that the delegates had to go to a room to collect something . . . Could you describe what really . . . happened?’
‘There was never anything said while I was there, before Mr Bin Hammam or after, or while the lunch was taking place about any gift, any room at any time,’ Warner insisted.
There were a smattering of further questions before Damaseb reiterated that the committee’s only task was to determine whether, on the face of it, the ethics code had been broken. If they thought it had, a full investigation would follow. Before he could end the hearing, the irrepressible Warner leapt in again.
‘May I?’ he interjected. Damaseb was a patient man.
‘Yes, you may,’ he replied.
‘In normal jurisdictions one is innocent until proven guilty. In my part of the world one is guilty until proven innocent. You have no idea what my family and I are going through!’ Warner protested. ‘You have no idea, you have no idea. You have no idea what my party and my government are going through, you have no idea. So whatever happens it will take years, years to overcome this and that is the legacy that Mr Blatter and the FIFA have given me after twenty-nine years. Me!’ He sat back in his chair with an expression of wounded outrage.
Damaseb felt the time had come to be firm. ‘Yes, I understand the depth of the offence you feel,’ he told Warner. ‘But one thing I want to emphasise is we are a judicial body and, Mr Warner . . . what I do every day for a living is take judicial decisions which affect the lives of people . . . I am never scared to do that because that’s the oath that I’ve taken. However unpleasant the consequences, a judicial function must be performed. Always bearing in mind the rights of people, weighing all the evidence and so on. So I can only assume that what you say about what you go through is a true reflection of what is happening and how you feel, but that again does not take away the responsibility that we have as a committee to deliberate on this matter.’
Warner was subdued. Before the hearing finished, Torres had a couple more questions.
‘Do you recall having a meeting with President Blatter in Guatemala on the tenth of April?’
‘Sure,’ Warner said.
‘Did you tell President Blatter that CFU was having a special meeting?’
‘I told him then and I told him at the congress in Miami.’
‘Did you ever mention to him that the delegates would be given cash by President Hammam?’
‘I couldn’t tell him that, that was not the case.’
‘So you don’t recall President Blatter telling you at that meeting that no gifts should be provided to any of the attendees?’
‘I swear to you here today we never discussed that,’ Warner said.
‘Thank you,’ said T
orres. The meeting drew to a close, and Damaseb made a note of the telephone number of Warner’s hotel so that he could be contacted later that day when they made their decision. Next, it was Bin Hammam’s turn to face the inquisitors.
By the time the AFC president’s black limousine rolled down the drive at just after noon, the late spring light had been greyed by gathering clouds. Hunched in the back seat in a black suit, his red tie and dark glasses, Bin Hammam stared out reproachfully at the cameramen clamouring at the window, his tight-lipped frown captured eerily in the blaze of flashbulbs which threw half his face into shadow. The driver forced his way through the throng and the car eased down the ramp into the privacy of the underground car park, where Bin Hammam took a moment to gird himself before stepping out. Netzle accompanied him upstairs to the committee room.
‘I’d like to welcome you, Mr Bin Hammam,’ Damaseb began, when the Qatari and his lawyer had taken their seats before the panel.
‘Good morning, Your Honour, and good morning gentleman; lady. My name is Mohamed bin Hammam Al-Abdulla,’ the accused man said softly. Damaseb introduced the panel, and asked Bin Hammam if he was happy to proceed.
‘Your Honour we are, have a full confidence in yourself and all the members existing here,’ Bin Hammam said, with a courteous inclination of the head. Damaseb shuffled his papers and prepared to begin.
‘A complaint has been submitted to us by the FIFA general secretary, relating to allegations that involve you, Mr Bin Hammam, which I’m sure, by now, you are aware,’ the judge said. ‘Now given the gravity of the allegations made . . . the reason we are here this afternoon with you Mr Bin Hammam, is to determine this sole question: does there appear to be an infringement of the code of ethics?’ The charges were read. Bin Hammam stood accused of violating articles three, six, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and fourteen of the FIFA code of ethics relating to conduct towards government and private organisations, loyalty and confidentiality, accepting and giving gifts and other benefits, bribery, commission and duty of disclosure. Damaseb invited him to give his account.
‘Dear members, I have introductory personal remarks I want to make to you,’ Bin Hammam began. ‘First of all, Your Honour, I don’t know why I am here. Mr Blazer alleges that I try to buy votes. This is outrageous and simply not true. I never bought any votes. I confirm again that I paid the cost of the extraordinary meeting in Trinidad and the travelling and accommodation costs and the daily allowances for the participants. The banking transfer of $360,000 was based on estimate by my staff. I learned that after our arrival in Trinidad my staff paid another amount of $50,000 in cash to the staff of CFU to cover any additional expenses when they learned that the numbers of the attendees was higher than we have estimated.’
Netzle interjected: ‘May I add that we expected you, Your Honour, to ask specific questions to Mr Bin Hammam and that he will be ready to answer, that was our expectation for this proceeding. How do you want to proceed?’
‘We will ask some questions but what I’ve decided to do is to afford as much opportunity as possible to you to state your case,’ Damaseb said. ‘Please use this opportunity to tell us as much as possible about your side of the story.’
Bin Hammam went on to explain that his friend Jack Warner had arranged the CFU meeting to give him a fair hearing after he was shut out of the CONCACAF congress in Miami. He had simply attended to make a speech, and had no part in handing out any gifts. ‘I was really very surprised to learn about the allegation against me later on,’ he said. ‘I confirmed to you that . . . no cash, no transfer made by me or by any of my staff or delegations.’
Once he had stated his own denials, Bin Hammam was at pains to extinguish any suggestion he might previously have appeared to make that Sepp Blatter may have condoned the payment of bribes by Jack Warner.
‘I asked to include Mr Blatter in the proceeding to demonstrate by his own statements that he did not consent to any cash payments and that all such remarks in the report of Mr Blazer’s are false.’ He elaborated: ‘Regarding Mr Blatter, it wasn’t my saying that I wanted to bring Mr Blatter today as a committee, but when I read the report of Mr Blazer, it referred to a statement of Mr David Sabir who said that Mr Warner told the delegates that he had informed Mr Blatter about the gift and he had no issue with it. I want to make this very clear. I cannot imagine that Mr Warner said so or that Mr Blatter acknowledged any cash payment, but I want this to be confirmed by the ethic committee that this is not true. For me it is a further indication that the entire allegations are not true. All I wanted was a level playing field for the election. The ethic committee shall investigate all allegations made by this report and not only some of them. I am sure that these allegations are unfounded whether they are aimed at Warner, me or Mr Blatter. I don’t know whether there is anything else, Your Honour, I can say in this regard.’
Netzle stepped in to overlay the point, in case there was any room for doubt. No allegations were being made about Blatter by Bin Hammam. ‘We had no goal to create more harm to anyone else but when we read this document which . . . is the basis of this proceedings then we stumbled over two or three sentences in which Mr Blatter was mentioned. The only reason why we asked you to include him was because of these sentences. We do not have additional evidence. We do not bring any allegations against him but we say, this has been mentioned and if this is not true, this should be determined by your court, by your commission. It also gives an indication about the credibility of all other allegations which have been made under the same headings and which are directed against Mr Bin Hammam. That’s the reason why we included that.’
After some further discussion, Sondre Kaafjord pitched in with a question. ‘After meeting the tenth of May in the congress in CFU, there obviously had been a follow-up in a smaller room. There are very different opinions on what happened there . . . Did you hear during the meeting or at the end of the meeting . . . anyone saying anything to the delegates about to proceed to a room to get daily allowances or whatever? Did you hear anything from anyone?’
‘Never, sir.’
Now it was Juan Pedro Damiani’s turn. The Uruguayan official was well known to Bin Hammam – the pair had served together on FIFA committees for years.
‘Why would you think that Mr Blazer, after designation of Qatar for the World Cup, why do you think the relationship with you changed?’ he enquired.
‘I cannot comment, sir,’ Bin Hammam replied. ‘I don’t want to believe that such a relationship should be affected when Qatar and the United States were in a fair competition and Qatar won over the United States.’
Next, Les Murray, an Australian broadcaster who sat on the ethics committee, piled in.
‘You say in two of the paragraphs in your statement to the ethics committee, that there are attempts to discredit you in this process. You do that in paragraph three where you claim that your candidature is obviously, you say, is being besmirched by these allegations, deliberately and also in paragraph seventeen where you accuse, I gather, Mr Blazer of doing this. I mean, are you talking here about some kind of broad conspiracy? If you are, is there any other evidence you have, beyond this particular case, of that going on?’
‘Definitely I have been very much affected by these allegations,’ Bin Hammam replied sadly. ‘I don’t want actually to wish that there is a huge conspiracy, but some evidence is there. For example two or three days earlier, there was the Qatar bid and my name was always connected to bribery and for, you know, to bribe another members from FIFA executive committee. So this connection, and after that this has come, it means one thing. There is some people trying to damage my name and the public, prior to the election. Well, if you say it’s conspiracy, I think it is. But I don’t know whether these are evidence or not enough.’
The committee made no comment. There were a few more general questions about the reason for asking for a special meeting with the Caribbean officials, and then Damaseb asked Bin Hammam whether he had anything to add in conclusion.
‘Your Honour, dear members, I believe that I have received a fair treatment and a fair hearing in your committee. I’d like to thank you very much for that.’
Damaseb gave a nod, satisfied. ‘Thank you very much, sir, and I want to assure that moving beyond this, we shall respect your rights fully, afford you every opportunity to state your case, to present evidence and to challenge whatever evidence there may be against you. You are going to leave us now, but I want you to know that we are not here to determine your guilt or innocence and we don’t want anyone to suggest to you otherwise . . . That is a process that will come at a much later stage and, as I said, after you, we are going to listen to the next accused person who is the president of FIFA and after that we’ll make our determination on the limited purpose for which we are here.’
Netzle interjected again: ‘Excuse me, the timing. Just to know . . . It has been announced that there is a media conference at six o’clock?’
‘Well, I know because of the intense public and media interest, they have to announce whatever decisions the committee takes,’ said Damaseb. ‘I’m personally not aware of times that they’ve been given or anyway but . . . before anything is announced, you will be informed about the outcome. That I can promise you.’