Fifa corruption

 Documents show details of Jack Warner 'bribes'

sangilhamnews-investigation has seen evidence that details what happened to the $10m sent from Fifa to accounts controlled by former vice-president Jack Warner.

The money, sent on behalf of South Africa, was meant to be used for its Caribbean diaspora legacy programme.
But documents suggest Mr Warner used the payment for cash withdrawals, personal loans and to launder money.
The 72-year-old, who has been indicted by the US FBI for corruption, denies all claims of wrongdoing.
Fifa says it is co-operating with the investigation.
And South Africa's Football Association has issued a detailed statement denying any wrongdoing.
The papers seen by the BBC detail three wire transfers by Fifa.
In the three transactions - on 4 January, 1 February and 10 March 2008 - funds totalling $10m (£6.5m) from Fifa accounts were received into Concacaf accounts controlled by Jack Warner.
At the time, he was in charge of the body, which governs football in North and Central America and the Caribbean.

Personal payouts

The money had been promised by South Africa's Football Association for its so-called diaspora legacy programme to develop football in the Caribbean.

The documents detail exactly how and when the money was transferred

The documents reveal how the money was spent and moved around.
JTA Supermarkets, a large chain in Trinidad, received $4,860,000 from the accounts.
The money was paid in instalments from January 2008 to March 2009. The largest payment was $1,350,000 paid in February 2008.
US prosecutors say the money was mostly paid back to Mr Warner in local currency.

Huge sums of money were used to pay off credit cards and personal loans

Jack Warner: The US charge sheet

• Accused of racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, bribery
• From the early 1990s, he allegedly "began to leverage his influence and exploit his official positions for personal gain"
• Allegedly accepted a $10m bribe from South African officials in return for voting to award them the 2010 World Cup
• Allegedly bribed officials with envelopes each containing $40,000 in cash; when one demurred, he allegedly said: "There are some people here who think they are more pious than thou. If you're pious, open a church, friends. Our business is our business"

Key questions answered
Jack Warner: Controversial ex-Fifa chief
Who are the indicted officials?
Fifa in crisis - Special Reports

The BBC gave details of its investigation to Brent Sancho, Trinidad and Tobago's sports minister and a former footballer.
He said: "He [Mr Warner] must face justice, he must answer all of these questions. Justice has to be served.
"He will have to account, with this investigation, he will have to answer for his actions."
The documents also show $360,000 of the Fifa money was withdrawn by people connected to Mr Warner.

A Trinidad supermarket received almost $5m

Nearly $1.6m was used to pay the former Fifa vice-president's credit cards and personal loans.
The documents show the largest personal loan Mr Warner provided for himself was $410,000.
The largest credit card payment was $87,000.
Mr Sancho says he is now angry and disappointed.
"I'm devastated because a lot of that money should have been back in football, back in the development of children playing the sport.
"It is a travesty. Mr Warner should answer the questions," he added.

'The gloves are off'

Jack Warner is one of 14 people charged by US prosecutors over alleged corruption at Fifa.
The US Justice department alleges the 14 accepted bribes and kickbacks estimated at more than $150m (£97m) over a 24-year period.
Mr Warner denies all charges of corruption.

Fifa scandal: Is the long arm of US law now overreaching?

It is probably premature to start talking about Wembley being rebranded as the Loretta E Lynch stadium - with perhaps a James Comey stand, named after the FBI chief - but surely it's on the cards.

After all has anyone delighted English soccer fans more than the US Attorney General and the FBI head?
There was almost a visceral thrill and delight among those who have come to loathe and detest FIFA, that finally someone was taking it on.
The world's most powerful law enforcement agency versus the seemingly untouchable and omnipotent world sports body. That's a match up that any fan would pay top dollar to watch. At last, Fifa would get its comeuppance.
We still have no definitive answer to the question - what changed Sepp Blatter's mind between winning re-election on Friday and standing down on Tuesday?
But it's pretty clear what the evidence points to. Was it the brilliant journalism from both the Sunday Times and the BBC that had made him blink? Sadly, no.

Was it the threat of the sponsors pulling out their cash? Well I read all the statements from the various global corporations as they were released last week - and frankly, they had all the resolve of a sweaty, clammy, limp handshake. "We believe in integrity and hope Fifa will act in alignment with our core values." Oh how they must have quaked and quivered at Fifa HQ when they read those pusillanimous missives.
What about the threat of a boycott of the next World Cup from the UEFA nations? Really - are you kidding me? Was that ever going to happen? No. So if you discount those, that means the only credible explanation is the FBI investigation - arrests had been made, the investigation was going to be widened - and under that sort of relentless pressure, Blatter folded.
There is a great little vignette in the Chuck Blazer court papers. He is the ex-Fifa executive committee member who has pleaded guilty to corruption and cut a deal with the FBI to carry a wiretap to implicate others. At one point in the hearing there is a discussion in court about how to pronounce "Fifa".
It is an organisation of which there is scant knowledge in the US. This is a story that across Europe and much of the rest of the world is leading the news every night. In the US it is not even in the television headlines - despite the whole process being driven by the FBI.
And that is important. It would be lovely to think that in the separation of powers that is one of the distinguishing features of liberal democracies, the judicial system operates entirely independently of the executive. But does it? Remember the start of Charles Dickens' Bleak House - with the thick impenetrable fog enveloping everything: "And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery."

US fans can cheer their prosecutors as well as their team

There is always a murky political consideration of what gets investigated and how. Just take the phone hacking investigation in the UK. In one political climate the prosecuting authorities decided not to go after one of the world's most powerful media organisations - and then a few years later did. The laws hadn't changed, just a change in the desire to implement them. If the FBI had uncovered corruption, say, at the National Basketball Association in the US there would have been all manner of political considerations to weigh. Who were the key figures, what were their political connections, who else might get caught up in the inquiry, is every duck lined up in a row.
I suspect with this inquiry there were NO political considerations. Virtually everyone is foreign, so we can go for it with gusto. No holds barred.
So three cheers for the FBI, its very long reach and US justice? Well, up to a point. That was how I felt last week. But there's another side to this, perhaps in my mind sparked by the news on Wednesday that the FBI's investigation has widened to include the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar.
Some of the charges relate to alleged crimes in the US, but there are massive implications to what my legal friends would call ETJ - Extraterritorial Jurisdiction. I'm not a lawyer but it seems to me to be the right of the US to poke its nose into anyone's affairs anywhere in the world. So let's take a hypothetical British company that has a business arm in America, it is then subject to the terms of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. And let's say this British company in London pays a sweetener to some company in Bulgaria to get a factory opened in Sofia - it has broken US law and the FBI can come knocking at the door.

Blatter quit, eventually

Take the case of BNP Paribas, the biggest of the French banks. Last year it was fined $8.9bn by the US justice department for breaching American sanctions against Sudan, Iran and Cuba. Yes, American sanctions (there are no French sanctions). The fine was so great, and the penalties so damaging that President Hollande pleaded with President Obama directly to intervene. I know the banks are hardly cause celebres for the downtrodden and exploited - but why isn't this a matter for the French judicial authorities, and the French authorities alone? There are many other examples.
Barack Obama's presidency has been marked by his determination to pull US troops out of foreign conflicts, to admit past mistakes and to say it is not for us to pick and choose which world leaders we like. But is America creating a new legal imperialism?
Let us just imagine for a minute that instead of Qatar having won the 2022 bid, it had been the US. How would America respond if Russia announced it was to investigate how the World Cup was awarded to the US?
Maybe old Vladimir Putin had a point when he said after the FIFA arrests last week - what business is this of America?