‘What have you got for me today?’

Weber with Issa Hayatou

Asking Weber – who gave him accreditation?
(click on image to watch video)

Asking Weber for an interview in 2006 (video)

Asking Rogge about Weber’s accreditation (video)

Danish TV asks about Weber (video)

Rogge denies IOC corruption (video)

The things they say...

‘Neither FIFA nor its President have anything to hide, nor do they wish to.’

Blatter press release, 28 January, 2003

BBC Panorama Reporter Andy Davies:

‘A one million franc bribe … is it not correct that Mr Blatter asked that it be moved to the FIFA official who was named on the payment slip?’

FIFA Director of Communications Markus Siegler:

‘If you do not stop now, then we call the security and we put you out.’

FIFA Press conference, Zurich, Tuesday, 11 April 2006

‘I am deputy chairman of the finance committee of FIFA. I oversee a budget of US$2 billion and I have never seen one iota of corruption.’

Jack Warner, Trinidad Express 12 December 2004

‘Lying and deception and bad faith are standard operating procedure at FIFA.’

Adam C. Silverstein, a lawyer for MasterCard in their successful action against FIFA, New York, December 1, 2006

‘I do not believe a Jew can ever be a referee at that level (Argentine Premier League) because it’s hard work and, you know, Jews don’t like hard work.’

FIFA senior vice-president and chair of Finance Committee, Julio Grondona, 5 July 2003. Buenos Aires

‘FIFA is a healthy, clean and transparent organisation with nothing to hide. There is huge public interest in FIFA, therefore we have to be as transparent as possible. We will try to communicate in a more open way so the world can believe us and be proud of their federation.’

FIFA General Secretary Urs Linsi, January 2003, on fifa.com

Why does the IOC love the Bagman?

By Andrew Jennings

Sunday October 18, 2009

I could hardly believe my eyes! Welcome in the bosom of ‘the Olympic Family’ at their IOC Session and Congress in Copenhagen was Jean-Marie Weber, the Bagman, the generous friend of corrupt sports officials for the last 30 years.

How did this man, also convicted of fraud in a Swiss court last year, obtain neck-plastic, the precious accreditation that opened the door of the Bella Centre to him?

A photographer swiftly snapped – under poor lighting conditions - an astonishing photo of Weber shaking hands warmly with the IOC’s most senior member, Brazil’s João Havelange, former president of FIFA and named by the BBC in 2006 as the grateful recipient of massive bribes over the decades from Weber and his Swiss company ISL (International Sport and Marketing).

The team I was working with from Denmark’s Ekstra Bladet newspaper and its website TV channel caught up with Weber in lengthy conversation with IOC member Issa Hayatou, leader of African football and a FIFA vice-president. The Danish reporters also established that Weber had also been allocated a room in the Marriot, the exclusive hotel of the IOC members – and their trusted associates.

Then we went to ask Bagman Weber, who had arranged and authorised accreditation for him? Note that at 2 minutes and 11 seconds into the video report a man in a grey suit and wearing glasses puts his arm around Weber’s shoulders. He is Walter Gagg, longtime lieutenant of FIFA boss Sepp Blatter. Gagg was representing Blatter who couldn’t be bothered to attend the Congress every day.

Three years ago I tried to interview Bagman Weber for the BBC Panorama programme ‘The Beautiful Bung.’

Subsequently Weber admitted in court paying $100 million in bribes to sports officials.

At IOC President Rogge’s final press conference I asked him who had given Weber accreditation for Copenhagen.

Similar questions were also raised by Denmark’s DR TV channel.

I couldn’t find any mention of Rogge’s commitment to find out who authorised Weber’s accreditation in the stories filed by the international news agencies or the ‘responsible’ reporters from around Europe and the USA who claim to be IOC ‘experts.’ The Bagman scandal has been suppressed.

Earlier in the Congress IOC president Jacque Rogge was filmed assuring reporters that the IOC was now clean and (check words later) that he ‘trusted all my members.’

I’ve written to President Rogge asking him, when he has carried out his investigation, who authorised the Bagman’s presence at the Congress.

(For essential, must-read reporting of the events in Copenhagen, go to Jens Weinreich’s blog and watch his video interviews with IOC members who see no need for an IOC anti-corruption commission).