FIFA President Sepp Blatter promises to have his organization look into charges that six more executive committee members were involved in bribery during the2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests, and he wants it done before June 1 when he faces a re-election challenge from Asian Football Confederation President Mohamedbin Hammam. “We have to do it now immediately,” Blatter said in an interview with Qatar-based network Al-Jazeera. “We have exactly three weeks to do so.”
FIFA secretary generalJerome Valcke has asked England’s Football Association to provide Parliamentary records of Tuesday’s testimony from David Triesman, the formerleader of England’s 2018 bid, in which he charged that four long-standing FIFA officials — Jack Warner, Nicolas Leoz,Ricardo Teixeira and Worawi Makudi — requested bribes in the 2018 bidding. There was also testimony from Sunday Timesreporters that Qatar paid $1.5 million to two other FIFA executive committee members, Issa Hayatou and Jacques Anouma,for their votes in the 2022 contest Qatar won over the United States in the final round.
FIFA said it has asked the newspaper for more evidence of information it received. Two members ofFIFA’s executive committee, Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii, were suspended for their part in World Cup 2018 and 2022corruption allegations. “It is not the first time and we know how to react now,” Blatter said. “Once we have the evidence then we can decide where we go, if we go, in the investigation — anadministrative investigation or directly to the ethics committee.”