Slippery Sepp Survives Another FIFA Farce.

The corruption case involving collapsed sports marketing company ISL (International Sport and Leisure) and FIFA  saw the man presiding over the FIFA Ethics Committee Adjudicatory Chamber, Judge Hans-Joachim Eckert describe recipients of ISL’s generous donations as ‘morally and ethically reproachable.’ The men in question were former FIFA President Joao Havelange,  and his former son in Law  Ricardo Texeira along with Nicolas Leoz, once head on the CONMEBOL. The findings saw the all powerful Havelange relinquish his post as honorary President. The sun has finally set on the ‘sun-king’ as he was known. It was alleged that Texeira and his father in law pocketed USD41million in bribes relating to the television and marketing rights of the FIFA World Cup.

Current FIFA President, Sepp Blatter was cleared of any misconduct during his period as General Secretary of FIFA, however the Judge did criticise his handling of one very large payment which made its way into FIFA’s bank account rather than the then President, and Blatter’s then boss, Havelange’s.

For those who were unaware, ISL was Fifa’s media and marketing partner at the end of the 1990s. They were given the task of  handling all TV rights negotiations for the World Cup. A very lucrative business one would expect, but ISL went broke in 2001, owing millions of pounds to creditors. During an investigation into the company’s collapse investigators found evidence that ‘commissions’ – or for want of a better word, bribes – had been paid to senior FIFA officials. They in turn helped secure lucrative TV deals, most notably in South America.

The judge’s findings stunned many who thought this would result in FIFA finally cleaning up its act, but he ruled that senior directors of FIFA were not guilty of taking bribes from the sports marketing company ISL. This is where the law has saved these senior directors, as they were found not guilty not because they hadn’t received money from ISL but because at the time the time that they were, such payments weren’t illegal under Swiss law. Unbelievable, but that was the law. It is not now.

All of this has been like a cold that would not go away for FIFA, ever since investigative journalist Andrew Jennings uncovered the link between ISL and FIFA. Only as recently as 2004 did FIFA set up its Ethics committee, long after the money had gone and ISL had ceased to exist. The outcome has not satisfied many outside of FIFA but the truth is the ‘investigative panel’ and the ‘decisions panel’ the latter headed by Judge Eckert has been unable to reveal more than most people already knew. The reason being FIFA’s own ethics committee can only enforce the rules set out in its own code of ethics.

The overall situation is laughable, but is probably best summed up by Kevin Roberts the Editorial Director of the Sport Business Group who wrote in an article on his take of the whole affair “ISL was born out of the growing but fairly recent realisation that there was big money to be made out of sport. Everything was new. Rules were being made up on the hoof because there were simply no precedent for much of what was happening and according to some of the people doing deals at the time, the entrepreneurs of the day were dealing with people who were at the same time self-interested, naïve and slightly astonished by the power they had unexpectedly acquired as the value of the rights they controlled soared.”

This comment could well sum up football in Australia of late, but maybe we are being a little cynical. Then again maybe we are not!