The underbelly of world football Andrew Jennings talks to Sally Evans about his damning exposé of Sepp Blatter & Fifa May 20, 2010 By Sally Evans ------------------------------ With only 20 days to go before we host the world's biggest sporting event, there's no turning back
But when the final whistle has blown, the dust settled and all our guests from hither and thon have returned thither and yon, discarding their vuvuzelas on the way to the airport, will we find that it has all been worth it? In the past year, there have been hundreds of reports of people falling foul of the rules and regulations governing the soccer World Cup - a brand fiercely and brutally protected by Fifa, which, since it was founded exactly 106 years ago today, has become one of the world's most secretive and perhaps most powerful organisations. Fifa's glory is on the field, under the bright lights of our amazing new stadiums, but its shame lurks in the shadows, and there's no one who knows the darker side of Fifa better than British investigative sports reporter Andrew Jennings. Jennings has spent three decades exposing the corruption and greed that has come to define some of the world's biggest sporting organisations. Consequently, he has the rare privilege of being the only reporter in the world banned from Fifa media briefings. Speaking from his home in Manchester, in the UK, Jennings said his first encounter with sports investigations was by chance: he "stumbled into the International Olympic Committee". "I discovered that the IOC's president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, was a fascist under [long-time Spanish dictator Gen Francisco] Franco - and that the only exercise he had ever done was raising his right arm. It was then that I started delving into the IOC's national executive committee, and I learnt a lot. I wrote three books on the buggers!" Jennings caused such a ruckus with his exposé on the Olympic body's "blue-shirted" leader that he was jailed for five days in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was this that catapulted him into the world of Fifa. "The IOC and Fifa had a common link: International Sport and Leisure. The company was Fifa's former marketing partner but went insolvent amid allegations that it was bribing Fifa officials to secure lucrative contracts for marketing and television rights. The kickbacks for Fifa were fantastic. I didn't want to investigate Fifa, but I knew something was there." On the subject of Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, Jennings does not hold back. "Herr Blatter!" he jokes, adding: "He doesn't like it when you call him that ." Since South Africa won the bid in 2004 to host the 2010 Fifa World Cup, we have become accustomed to Blatter's face on our televisions: kowtowing to former president Nelson Mandela, cutting ribbons at new sports facilities in poor townships and, of course, assuring us that "we are on schedule". In his acclaimed book Foul! Jennings gets straight to the point on our successful bid. "One candidate for 2010 had something Jack Warner - a Fifa executive from Trinidad and Tobago, notorious for allegedly defrauding that country's soccer team of millions of pounds in 2006 - wanted more than anything else: Nelson Mandela. And if they wanted his vote, Jack had to have his pound of Mandela's flesh [access to Madiba]." Jennings has devoted much of his time to investigating Warner's alleged corruption and nepotism. "He is a horrible, horrible thief." Jennings explains that 13 players from the national Trinidad side, the Soca Warriors, which qualified for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, are still owed money by Warner, the head of their national soccer federation. The players were each paid about 500 Trinidad pounds, but it came out later that the Trinidad and Tobago soccer federation had made 15million pounds. In May 2008, a UK court ruled against Warner and ordered that the players be compensated - but this has yet to happen. But that's Warner. How is Blatter, the man who will be moving in for a month to run our country, perceived internationally? Jennings says: "Well, it's not for nothing that he has been booed at the last two World Cups. Your country is being exploited. The profits of the World Cup won't trickle down - they won't go to anyone except Fifa. "Have Fifa's soccer grants been properly applied?" Jennings asks. "No. Blatter looks for officials who can be corrupted. He is a very good politician." One of the main bones of contention in the hosting of this World Cup has been the price of transport and accommodation. "When the lights went out at Lehman Brothers, everyone took a big hit. Because of the financial crisis, corporate and ordinary fans didn't have the resources to pay silly money for hospitality packages." The problem, Jennings says, is that the exclusive holder of the official hospitality programme, Match Hospitality, "has milked the fans". Blatter's nephew, Philippe, is a partner in the company. "Paying $755 for a return domestic flight is not going to happen this time. It is too late, people decided last year that they weren't coming. Transport and hospitality got the shaft; these come before violence as a deterring factor. People just can't afford it. "Not even the American wholesaler could sell the overpriced hospitality packages. For Match it's just greed, greed, greed. "What matters is the percentage of the commissions they make. So they push the prices higher to make a bigger commission. But the corporates won't spend money in this economic climate." But aren't Fifa and the local organising committee constantly assuring us that there are hardly any tickets left? "Well, your municipalities are buying tickets. They tell you there are no empty seats because we have to believe there is a scarcity value; there has been a political move to cover up the scandal. Blatter is dishing out tickets to the unemployed - you are going to get screwed." Jennings insists, in no uncertain terms, that Fifa, Match and the local organising committee have "screwed" us and that any profit made from the event "stays in Zurich", where Fifa has its headquarters. "South Africa bent over and let Fifa have their way. Officials and the government have sold South Africa down the river: 'Bye Africa, bye suckers!'" For visitors from the northern hemisphere, he adds: "Trading one winter for another is not all that appealing." According to Jennings, after the final whistle blows, South Africans have nothing to look forward to but a mountain of scandal, debt and - in our shiny new, expensive stadiums - some rather large white elephants. http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article461110.ece/The-underbelly-of-world-football -- News is something someone, somewhere doesn’t want to read. The rest is PR.— Claud Cockburn www.kwelaxpress.co.za -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. 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