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MUMBAI:
A British football chief has revealed how a Fifa VP asked him
to pay Football Association money into his own personal bank account.
The
former chairman of the Scottish FA, John McBeth, has told UK pubcaster
the BBC's show Panorama that a top Fifa executive Jack
Warner asked him to make the match fee cheque payable to him personally,
following an international match in Edinburgh.
It
is one of a series of suspect dealings involving Fifa. Panorama
asks why Fifa's ethics committee run by Lord Sebastian
Coe is not taking action.
Other
questions about foul play directed at world football's governing
body include:
Why
a FIFA official, branded a liar by an American judge, is now Fifa
General Secretary; why no-one has been prosecuted after falsifying
documents in the same case a crime punishable by up to
five years in prison; and
why a Fifa executive committee member was allowed to pay his national
team players only £500 each for their participation in the
World Cup, despite securing lucrative sponsorship deals
and then blacklisted them from the national team when they complained.
Panorama
asked Lord Coe why the ethics committee was not looking into these
issues. He declined to answer or give any details of his job,
referring all queries to Fifa, the body he is supposed to be monitoring.
McBeth
first expressed concerns about corruption in Fifa after being
chosen to fill Britain's post on the Fifa executive committee
in May this year. He pointed the finger at football officials
in Africa and the Caribbean but was dropped just days before
starting his new job amid accusations of bigotry and racism from
Vice-President Warner.
However,
he is adamant that this was a merely a smokescreen and that he
was sailing far too close to the truth for some Fifa members.
McBeth says, "There are one or two people on that executive
committee that I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw. I was
talking about the football people that I've met and dealt with
in Africa and the Caribbean. It was football people I was talking
about. I wasn't talking about the nation. I'm not a racist bigot
and I think it probably says more about Jack and him trying to
deflect away the criticism that I was making of corruption."
Speaking
for the first time on the subject, McBeth has revealed how Warner,
who represents Fifa in North and Central America and the Caribbean,
asked him to pay a match fee directly into his personal account.
Previously,
Warner was found guilty by Fifa's ethics committee of touting
thousands of World Cup tickets through his family travel company
in Trinidad. Yet he escaped with nothing more than a slap on the
wrist. He was also accused of "ripping off" Trinidad
and Tobago's players following last year's World Cup.
The
Panorama investigation has also found that some of Fifa's
actions in relation to a sponsorship deal amounted to criminal
activity, punishable by up to five years in prison in Fifa's home
nation, Switzerland.
FIFA
attempted to drop its sponsor MasterCard and replace it with Visa,
contrary to a long-standing agreement, and was taken to court
in New York by MasterCard, where the judge condemned its actions.The
man who led FIFA's marketing team, Jerome Valcke, admitted lying
to both MasterCard and Visa.
The
BBC adds that despite the serious nature of the case, Lord Coe's
ethics committee has took no action. And when Panorama
asked Lord Coe why he was not looking into this case he declined
to talk. Warner and Valcke also declined to comment.
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