Have you noticed how these FIFA payoff bombshells are spun as going towards a noble cause?
John Delaney, Football Association of Ireland (FAI)’s president revealed his organization received $5million from FIFA to drop legal proceedings after Thierry Henry’s handball goal dumped Ireland out of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers. That payment was termed as a loan towards building a stadium in Ireland, a cash strapped FAI could ill afford. FIFA wrote off that loan four years later.
The $10million which Jack Warner, former CONCACAF president and Sepp Blatter’s most trusted lieutenant, coolly pocketed from FIFA for CONCACAF’s vote winning South Africa the right to host the 2010 World Cup? Danny Jordaan, South Africa’s World Cup chief in a letter now made public to Jeroen Valcke, FIFA secretary general directs that a payment of $10million go towards FIFA’s diaspora legacy support programme benefiting Caribbean football. US authorities are now alleging this money was rerouted by Jeroen Valcke, FIFA’s secretary general to Jack Warner’s bank account.
Include TV broadcasters in this mix. In January 2015, Fox and Telemundo were stunned to find FIFA had awarded them broadcasting rights for the 2026 World Cup without opening up for bids. Insiders think it is FIFA’s payoff for moving the Qatar World Cup in 2022 to the winter which could result in FOX losing valuable viewership in the USA’s tightly packed winter sports schedule.