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

A week ago we highlighted FIFA attempts to prevent South African reporters writing critical articles about the organisation’s embedded corruption. Now FIFA has pushed their luck too far and faces full-out war.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article282178.ece

SA Press takes issue over Fifa's bullying

Jan 28, 2010 11:17 PM | By SALLY EVANS

South Africa's three largest newspaper groups have joined forces to send a submission to Fifa to inform them that the terms and conditions they imposed on journalists during the 2010 World Cup are "unconstitutional".

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=19&art_
id=nw20100129172132261C228061&set_id=&page_number=1

Media's Fifa concerns unheeded for two years

The SA media's concerns about Fifa restrictions on coverage of the World Cup have gone unheeded by the soccer world body for two years, veteran newsman Raymond Louw said on Friday.

http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/fifa-world-cup-bad-for-human-rights/

Fifa World Cup: bad for human rights?

Jan 29th, 2010 by Pierre De Vos

When South Africa won the right to host the 2010 Fifa World Cup many of us danced in the streets (in a manner of speaking). Finally, we had won the right to host a really major international sporting event (no offence to rugby and cricket, but those World Cups were Micky Mouse compared to the Fifa event.)

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