FIFA's greed
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By Yang Dong-hee
The 111-year-old Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) became a “vegetable organization” on Wednesday with the exit of its president Joseph Blatter, a 79-year-old Swiss citizen who has run FIFA since 1998.
The world's most popular sport was plunged into turmoil last week as key senior officials were suddenly arrested on U.S. corruption charges.
The stunning arrests in a dawn raid at a five-star Zurich hotel was an unprecedented blow against the soccer’s global authority FIFA, which has long been dogged by allegations of corruption but always escaped major criminal charges.
“As charged in the indictment, the defendants fostered a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world,” said FBI Director James Comey. He also added, “Undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks, and bribes became a way of doing business at FIFA.”
U.S. prosecutors said nine FIFA officials and five sports media and promotions executives had been charged in cases involving more than $150 million in bribes over a period of 24 years.
Despite this shocking news, Blatter had no difficulty in re-election to a fifth term at the FIFA Congress in Zurich last Friday. But, he had to yield to the extreme pressure in a couple of days.
Behind Blatter, there is a Swiss sports marketing agency named ISL, or International Sport and Leisure. Set up by Adidas boss Horst Dassler, ISL was closely associated with FIFA and International Olympic Committee executives.
ISL, specializing in buying and selling TV rights for FIFA in the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, was a strong background for Japan, who had believed the exclusive hosting of the 2002 World Cup. It is hardly known outside that Japan’s biggest advertising agency Dentsu has 49 percent of ISL's stocks. (Dentsu is famous for its catch-phrase “communication excellence.”)
Swiss prosecutors forced two FIFA executives to step down in 2012, revealing that the two executives, including former President Joao Havelange, received 27 million pounds worth of bribes between 1992 and 2003.
On May 1, 2013, Havelange was removed from the post of honorary chairman. In contrast, Blatter was exonerated of “criminal or ethical misconduct” but he was described as “clumsy” and it was questioned whether he “knew or should have known over the years before the bankruptcy of ISL that ISL had made bribes to other FIFA officials.”
Swiss prosecutors also announced their own criminal investigation into FIFA's puzzling simultaneous award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments to Russia and Qatar, seizing electronic data and documents at FIFA headquarters.
The New York Times demanded that the selection of Russia and Qatar should be subject to rigorous re-examination.
The commercial fallout from the scandal grew with Hyundai Motor, a major sponsor of FIFA, saying it was “extremely concerned” about the legal proceedings. Other sponsors like Coca-cola, Adidas, Visa, Budweiser and McDonald's have also spoken out.
Neither Havelange nor Blatter was a very good friend of Koreans. Havelange, 99, who was very close with Japan's football offficials, openly endorsed Japan for the 2002 World Cup.
With the support of Europeans and Americans who were against Havelange, Korea could jointly be awarded the 2002 World Cup for the first time in history on May 31, l996.
The next month, International Management Group (IMG), the U.S.-based sports marketing firm, opened its Korean office in downtown Seoul in the same building with the 2002 World Cup Organizing Committee and Korean Professional Football League(KPFL), for which IMG represented all the marketing activities.
As the first managing director of IMG Korea, I heard many “theories” regarding the joint hosting with Japan, but IMG's top management never said anything about it. I just heard IMG gave some kind of “help” to Korea and Korean Football League.
The direct damage that Sepp Blatter gave to Korea and Japan was the illegal choice of Byrom, a British firm that was selected as the exclusive ticketing agency for the 2002 World Cup.
Blatter's hand-picked company, with three employees, yes, only three, had little experience and, naturally couldn't sell the tickets in time, leaving hundreds of thousands of seats empty in most World Cup stadiums of both countries. The owner of Byrom was later proved to be close relatives of Blatter.
All the hosting cities in Japan lodged an official complaint with FIFA for the selection of Byrom, but Korean hosting cities remained silent. Blatter later issued a statement of apology only to Japan.
At the 10th year anniversary party of the 2002 World Cup at the Lotte Hotel in 2012, former FIFA Vice President Chung Mong-joon revealed a curious anecdote on the controversial Korea vs. Swiss tournament game:
Upon hearing complaints of one-sided referees for the Swiss team from the secretary general of Asian Football League, Blatter said, “You guys went to the semi-final four years ago when MJ (Chung Mong-joon) bribed all the referees.”
The writer, a former reporter with The Korea Times, worked 10 years at the Hankook Ilbo New York and returned home to be in sports marketing and show business. He was the first managing director of the Korea branch of the U.S.-based International Management Group. He can be reached at dhyang28@gmail.com.