Blatter & Havelange named in Swiss
bribes trial
Wednesday March 12, 2008: We barrel down the lakeside and up through the cow pastures and snowy peaks between Zurich and Zug. Today has to be Schmiergeld – kickbacks - day. We got a taste of Japanese cuisine last afternoon; today we expect to go global. We are itching for names.
We’ve got the Indictment; the tables in Section 12 list a dozen offshore bank accounts that got bunged around £9 million during the last 15 months of the ISL’s life. It’s getting taut in the court as Judge Siegwart reminds the Six, looking more sheepish by the minute, how they shipped the money out of Switzerland to secret accounts in Liechtenstein and the Caribbean. Then it was moved on to lucky bribe-takers. Bribery wasn’t illegal then in Switzerland (It is now). But Siegwart’s argument is that the Six knew the company was doomed and the money should have gone to pay overdue debts.
So why was it shipped out? Herr Malms clears his throat. At last, the pathetic admission that they weren’t the brightest dealmakers on the planet, never Masters of the Business Universe, no more than a grubby bunch of machine-greasers. Anybody with a bag of cash could have been a boss at ISL. It was a ‘regular part’ of ISL’s business he explained, to pay kickbacks.
‘I was told the company would not have existed if it had not made such payments,’ Malms said. He’d discovered the truth soon after joining when he wondered where the money was going. ‘I do not know who the final recipients were but I was always told they were well-known decision-makers in the world of sports politics.’
(Malms knows more - but 20 days more will pass before he punches the tickets of the two biggest names in the game.)
It was usual, he admitted, in the whole sports marketing and sports political business worldwide. ‘It was the style of the business. If we didn’t pay, we would have had to close our company.’ That’s what happens when you have to do business with the FIFA kleptocracy.
Absolutely, chipped in beancounter Schmid. ‘It is just like when you have to pay someone a salary. Otherwise they won't work for you. If we hadn't made the payments, the other parties wouldn't have signed the contracts.’
(They’ll confirm who the other parties were, in another 20 days. Of course some of us know already, but it helps to have these confirmations of corruption made in here and so we can report them, protected by court privilege.)
But, honestly, please believe me Malms told the court, he intended stopping the rot. That £9 million was to be the last of the kickbacks. He never did explain why he expected the shakedown artists to halt their demands on the company. But it had to stop, he explained, because ISL was planning a stock market floatation, and they wouldn’t be able to bury bribes in their books any longer.
Then he revealed that the techniques for clandestinely moving the wholesale bribe money offshore – exactly the way the drug dealers, corporate thieves and thuggish dictators hide their dirty money – were dreamed up by one of the most senior – and still very active – partners at their Zurich solicitors who we hacks at the back of the court know also represent FIFA.
This racket was then approved by their auditors KPMG who we hacks at the back remember represent FIFA as well. What a small world these rich men inhabit. And they had friends in high places. The scam was given the kiss of life by the Swiss federal tax authorities.