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

by Heidi Blake

  Blatter’s nostrils flared. What was this impudence? How dare this jumped-up Dutchman question the father of the family in public? Then Greg Dyke, the chairman of the hated English FA, stood too. ‘Mr Blatter,’ he said, ‘many of us are deeply troubled by your reaction to these allegations. It is time for FIFA to stop attacking the messenger and instead consider, and understand, the message . . . I read the articles in The Sunday Times in great detail, the allegations being made were nothing to do with racism. They are allegations about corruption within FIFA. These allegations need to be properly investigated and properly answered.’

  Two days later, Michael Garcia stepped up to the podium on the eve of the first World Cup match. The investigator had been flown in to head off the growing storm over the organisation’s failure to respond to the evidence in the FIFA Files. World football’s spin doctors had flatly ignored requests for comment from The Sunday Times and were now deflecting all calls about the crisis to the office of Garcia’s law firm in New York. The beleaguered investigator was being used as a human fireguard by his employers, and he looked like he knew it.

  The journalists watched as the speech was streamed live. Garcia looked like the man they remembered meeting the year before, with his sharp suit and his curly hair gelled into submission, but his manner was strikingly altered. He had lost his air of easy self-assurance and his face appeared to be fixed in a permanent wince. Standing there in the spotlights, he looked like a shifty schoolboy hauled before the assembly for forgetting to do his homework.

  ‘Is it me, or does he look like he’s about to be sick?’ Blake asked.

  ‘He’s definitely looking a bit green about the gills,’ Calvert said. ‘I sort of pity him, being dragged out like this to defend the indefensible.’

  Garcia had written perfunctorily to The Sunday Times the previous week, after receiving a volley of criticism for shutting down his investigation without examining the files. He had asked the newspaper to send him ‘any information and material you have that you believe may assist our inquiry’. The newspaper’s lawyer Pia Sarma had responded explaining that the evidence was voluminous, comprising millions of files, and the journalists were only beginning to mine their wealth of material. They would continue publishing fresh revelations in the coming weeks and they hoped he would review the underpinning documents. He had not responded. What would he say now?

  The investigator began. He said that his team had examined the reports and published documents in The Sunday Times and concluded that the evidence wasn’t new. The ‘majority of that material has been available to us for some time, since well before the recent wave of news reports,’ he claimed. The reporters shook their heads. There was no way he could have seen all their material. Their source had told them it was impossible. Still more bafflingly, he continued by claiming that he had approached ‘what appears to be the original source’ of that data and would be reviewing all the information in the files before issuing his final report. As it happened, the source was reclining in a chair a few feet away, and he let out an exclamation of protest.

  ‘I haven’t heard a word from anyone,’ he said indignantly. ‘The nerve!’

  Garcia was pushing on. ‘What we cannot do and what I will not do is postpone indefinitely our work on the possibility someone may publish something we may not have seen . . . we will follow our process, the process being considering the greatest number of allegations and issues in as thorough manner as possible.’

  The journalists later spoke to Flynn again, who remained adamant that there was no evidence that Bin Hammam had any real role in Qatar’s campaign. Garcia hadn’t interviewed him and he had been ruled out of the enquiry. The reporters were genuinely perplexed. On the one hand, the investigators claimed to have seen all their evidence. One other hand, they said they had not seen anything linking Bin Hammam to the 2022 bid. The two positions were plainly contradictory. From that point on, it was clear that FIFA’s internal investigation was a busted flush.

  It was only after the journalists had published the first two weeks’ stories that Blake suddenly stumbled upon another incendiary document within the files. It was the assessment by Andrew Pruis which named Qatar as the only bidding country with a ‘high risk’ of the tournament being shut down by a terrorist incident, and it made spine-chilling reading. ‘FIFA ignored its own terror alert,’ The Sunday Times splash headline read that weekend. The edition also revealed how Qatar had poached Chris Eaton and his entire investigations team to new jobs in Doha, and exposed Hassan Al-Thawadi’s secret involvement in Bin Hammam’s doomed presidential campaign.

  FIFA had refused to respond to questions from The Sunday Times in the previous two weeks, but this time its head of communications Walter De Gregorio had not been able to resist firing off an irascible reply. ‘As you might have noticed, we have a World Cup to run in Brazil and have therefore slightly different priorities then [sic] you,’ the email read. ‘We are answering your request in due course next week. On a confidential basis: England is playing tonight (just a head up for you).’ FIFA never did respond to the questions.

  The week after, the reporters revealed how FIFA’s executives had all pocketed bumper World Cup rewards of $200,000 each in South Africa. They had since announced amid fanfare that they would comply with new ethics recommendations to scrap all future bonuses, but had secretly doubled their salaries at the same time to make up for it. The newspaper also named and shamed a dozen FIFA officials who were still in power despite having taken Bin Hammam’s cash.

  This time, De Gregorio’s email was even more fevered. ‘We cannot comment on every single paper you pick out of the hundreds of millions of emails you have as you say. This could go on and on. First please kindly check all the hundreds of millions of emails you have, send us a summary of your findings and then you might get a statement from FIFA. But not before you do your homework. And for sure not before Judge Eckert has come to his conclusion based on the investigation report due to be delivered to him by Michael Garcia. We cannot play this game every weekend, you know well. This is ridiculous.’

  Blake read it to Calvert in fits of giggles. ‘Oh how wrong you are, Walter. Nothing would give us more pleasure than to play this game every weekend,’ she laughed.

  ‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘they pay this man to do their communications?’

  As the journalists were preparing their final stories, they received a startling phone call. It was from a man who had once held great power and influence within FIFA – one of the many casualties of Blatter’s changeable loyalties. He had been sent down from the hilltop and was now one of the characters who hung around in the shadows of world football, fixing deals, lobbying and trading on his knowledge of the inner workings of the game. By now, the journalists knew his name well. He had been a close friend of Bin Hammam’s for many years, and his emails had cropped up in the inbox many times. They always made for a lively and interesting read, full of gossip and intrigue. During Bin Hammam’s presidential campaign, this man had helped fix him up with a private surveillance outfit to monitor Blatter’s every move, and they had read the intelligence reports which came back with great interest. Hearing this voice on the end of the phone was uncanny – like getting a call from a character in the book on your bedside table.

  The lobbyist had been watching the FIFA farrago unfold over the past two weeks. He had seen Blatter stand up and denounce the journalists as racists and the Qatar World Cup bid team disowning Bin Hammam. He had since spoken to his friend in Qatar, and now he had something to say to Blake and Calvert, on condition of anonymity.

  ‘When I spoke to Bin Hammam about your story, he was laughing,’ he said. ‘The problem is that he has been bound to silence and he can’t defend himself.’ The lobbyist asserted that ‘Bin Hammam was the key person’ in the World Cup bid and ‘that’s why they won’, but the victory had incurred the wrath of the FIFA president. Blatter had been ‘very much afraid when Qatar was named as the host’ because he knew ‘if Bin Hammam w
as so powerful he can make an election in favour of Qatar for the World Cup, he could do it again in the presidential race.’ Then, the lobbyist told the journalists why Bin Hammam had pulled out of the presidential race so suddenly. ‘There was a deal between Qatar and Blatter. Blatter blackmailed Qatar and they forced him out.’

  Blake and Calvert were tantalised by this extraordinary claim which might explain so much about Bin Hammam’s mysterious retreat from the presidential battle and Blatter’s subsequent unwillingness to countenance any challenge to the Qatar World Cup. They were eager to find out more, and they agreed to meet the lobbyist in Zurich in two days’ time. As soon as the paper had gone to the printers on Saturday night, they drove straight to London to pick up their passports and headed to the airport.

  The journalists had arranged to meet the lobbyist for breakfast in a hotel on the shores of Lake Zurich. The Swiss air was crisp and the sun glittered on the gently rippling water as they sipped their cappuccinos and tucked into a basket full of fresh croissants with butter and jam. After months cooped up in the attic, it was nothing short of blissful to be abroad in the bright light of the world again, amid the hubbub of ordinary human chatter and the tang of freshly ground coffee in the air. The man who had phoned them out of the blue strolled in a few minutes late and gripped both their hands firmly. He was dressed in jeans, a navy blazer with brass buttons and an open-collared white shirt. They couldn’t help but notice the enormous glinting Rolex protruding from his cuff. This man had walked straight out of the dark world they had been scrutinising – a living, breathing character from the story of Bin Hammam’s corrupt campaign. And yet, as he began regaling them with his outrageous stories, it was impossible not to begin to warm to him.

  The lobbyist told them he had once been close to the FIFA president, but the relationship had soured and he had been forced out. ‘Blatter is a liar,’ he said in a lilting mid-European accent, tearing cheerfully into a croissant and beckoning to the waitress for coffee. ‘He has not a good character or a bad character. He has no character.’ Bin Hammam had been kind to him after his fall from grace, offering him ongoing work as a consultant and bringing him often to Doha. He had become close to the Qatari football boss and his kindly aide Najeeb Chirakal, and remained in touch with them both today. The journalists asked him what he knew about Qatar’s World Cup campaign.

  As far as he was concerned, Qatar had secured the 2022 tournament simply by playing the corrupt FIFA system, and who could blame them? ‘What Qatar did,’ he said, ‘was they excessively applied the rules of FIFA. They always did that. What they did was the way in FIFA. They were playing by FIFA’s unofficial rules.’

  ‘But what about Bin Hammam?’ Calvert asked. ‘What was his role?’ The lobbyist leaned forward confidentially.

  ‘Bin Hammam brought the World Cup to Qatar,’ he said firmly. ‘And they say publicly he had nothing to do with it. They set up two separate organisations: Bin Hammam and the bid were separate, but Bin Hammam was the coach of the Qatar bid. He brought the votes to Qatar. He was the one with the relationships . . . The rainmaker was Bin Hammam. That was his job . . . Blatter didn’t vote for Qatar because he did not want to give Bin Hammam any more power. Then when they won he got a shock and from then on his one thought was to destroy Mohamed bin Hammam. He provoked a death penalty by collecting those fourteen votes.’

  He looked wistful when his friend’s name came to his lips. ‘Society in Qatar is very cruel,’ he mused. ‘Once you are dropped, you are dropped.’ He explained that Bin Hammam was ‘forbidden to speak’ by his country’s royals after he was banned from football. ‘You don’t go against the Emir, but it’s a big joke to say he had no role . . . Bin Hammam fell into disgrace . . . Always when we talk about that, Najeeb points out how cruel the system is in Qatar.’ He looked up, engaging them with his pale grey eyes. ‘It’s like: “The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go”,’ he said, quoting the 18th-century tragedy Fiesco by the German playwright Friedrich Schiller.

  Blake was still scribbling in her notebook under the table as she jumped in with the next question. ‘You said on the phone that there was a deal to make Bin Hammam pull out of the presidential race. Can you tell us more about how that happened?’

  ‘Blatter had told Qatar that he would expose their bid unless they made Bin Hammam pull out,’ he said simply, licking a trace of cappuccino froth from his upper lip. He said he had visited Bin Hammam at home some months after his final retirement from world football and heard the whole sorry story.

  ‘Can you describe what happened when you went to see him?’ asked Calvert. The lobbyist nodded and leaned back in his chair, gazing momentarily out across the water.

  ‘It was in the majlis, a room where men met,’ he began. ‘Ten or twenty people would always be there, all local Qataris, personal friends of Bin Hammam. You left your shoes outside. It was a big room with warm beige sofas along the three sides. On the fourth side there were two TVs. People would come in and ask for help. They watched football on TV and chatted . . . It was a very relaxed, comfortable situation. Just to be with him is nice. He is quiet, with a sense of humour. Not showy. Male servants came round pouring coffee from on high into golden cups. There were hand gestures to tell the servants when you wanted coffee. In the house there were no shoes. Everyone was wearing the arabic dishdashas. There was only me in a suit. It was very cosy. Very nice.’

  ‘And what did he tell you about why he pulled out of the presidential election?’ Calvert urged.

  ‘He told me there was a deal and he was forced to withdraw. Blatter promised him that the ethical committee case would be dropped if he pulled out, and Bin Hammam pulled out of the race overnight. Later that day he was suspended. Blatter promised: “If there is no candidate, there is no case,” but not surprisingly, he lied. Blatter was very quick to betray him . . . This was especially hurtful for Bin Hammam. Having a case in front of the ethical committee and being condemned was very painful . . . When he told me he was strong. He is a very strange person. He doesn’t show a lot of emotions. But I knew how hurtful that must be for him.’ The reporters nodded and scribbled furiously in their notebooks, on the edge of their seats.

  ‘How was this deal communicated to Bin Hammam?’ Blake asked eagerly. The lobbyist told them that Bin Hammam had been called into a meeting between Blatter and a very senior member of the Qatari royal family on 28 May 2011, and told his presidential bid was over.

  ‘Blatter put Qatar under pressure – Bin Hammam told me this – to destroy Bin Hammam. It’s very sad for Bin Hammam. Now he has nothing. There was a deal between Blatter and [the Qatari royal]. It was here in Zurich in Blatter’s office . . . First they had a meeting and then Bin Hammam was called in and they told him to step down . . . Bin Hammam asked: “What about the case against me before the committee?” And Blatter says: “If there’s no candidate, there’s no case.” . . . Blatter knows how to blackmail people. For Qatar, this is normal life. It was more important that they can keep the World Cup. Qatar only had one concern – to get rid of Bin Hammam as a candidate.’

  The reporters were riveted. If this was true it was a seismic story, and it would explain so much. They wanted to know if there was any conceivable way the lobbyist might be able to persuade Bin Hammam to speak to them about what had happened. He laughed.

  ‘You are perhaps not his favourite people. Bin Hammam would never admit that he is forbidden to speak.’

  The journalists begged him to try to persuade Bin Hammam or Chirakal to talk to them directly. For three months they had been trawling the FIFA documents without the time to try to reach out to the characters involved. Now they wanted to talk to anyone who could shed light on this extraordinary new chapter in the story, about the alleged deal between Qatar and Blatter.

  They flew back from Zurich and returned to the bunker. It was time to pull down all their scribbled notes, charts and diagrams from the walls, pack up all their papers and vanish. They went out for a farewell dinner with the
source at a local Indian restaurant, and they all marvelled at the whirlwind events of the past month. It was not over. Now he knew he could trust them, the source had agreed to allow Blake and Calvert to access the files remotely from two heavily encrypted laptops so that they could continue to mine the evidence back in London. After dinner, Calvert shook his hand warmly and Blake gave him a hug. They would always be grateful for his immense bravery in risking everything to blow the whistle.

  The next morning, the journalists climbed into Blake’s Polo and set off home to London. They would soon see their families and friends for the first time in months, and sleep in their own beds. Then it was time for a holiday. Blake disappeared to a remote France farmhouse with a group of friends and Calvert went to visit his daughter in Rome. They came back at the end of the summer refreshed, and ready to plunge back into the files.

  At the end of September, the white-haired German judge in charge of FIFA’s adjudicatory chamber took delivery of the most hotly anticipated document in international sport. Michael Garcia had finally submitted his report, and Hans-Joachim Eckert reached for a highlighter pen in his Munich office as he began to leaf through its 350-pages, occasionally dipping into the 200,000 pages of supporting evidence. There were only four copies of this document in existence – Garcia and his deputy Cornel Borbély had retained theirs, and the other two went to Eckert and his deputy, the Australian lawyer Alan Sullivan.

  Millions of fans around the world had been eagerly awaiting the delivery of the document, which they hoped would finally provide an answer to the allegations of corruption that had swirled around the decision to hold the 2022 tournament in Qatar. But Eckert was going to disappoint them sorely. When he had finished flicking through the document and marking a few passages he wanted to return to, he crossed the room to his safe and tapped in the combination. He slid Garcia’s report and the weighty sheaf of accompanying evidence inside. Then, he slammed the door.