GOVERNANCE Fifa: an era of corruption nears its end How a determined investigating magistrate has followed the trail of corruption all the way into court EXTRACT Since the start of this century, English investigative reporter and author Andrew Jennings has been the nightmare of world football leaders. Time and again he has published documents revealing FIFA cor ruption in the news media and on his own website www.transparency.org. At Play the Game, he described events leading up to important court cases against football marketing executives in Switzerland 2008. by Andrew Jennings When the ISL marketing company went bust in the Blatter moved secretly to kill the investigation. spring of 2001 – they’d paid too many bribes and He wrote to the authorities in Zug and withdrew run out of money – it emerged that ISL had failed to FIFA’s complaint. They really weren’t bothered pay nearly £50 million it owed to FIFA, money paid anymore. by the Brazilian network Globo and the Japanese Hildbrand ignored Blatter and went on digging. Dentsu companies for World Cup rights. Blatter induced friendly reporters at papers like FIFA President Sepp Blatter had no choice the Financial Times to publish stories alleging that but to report the alleged crime to the authorities Hildbrand was unfi t to conduct the investigation. in Zug and he issued a press release naming a Hildbrand and his bosses in Zug ignored these number of ISL executives, mere functionaries at smears. the company. In May 2005 Investigator Hildbrand emerged Curiously Blatter omitted from his list of from the shadows, his investigation completed, and alleged criminals the name of the key man in all issued an indictment against the ISL executives the secret dealings of ISL, the inheritor of Dassler’s – including Jean-Marie Weber – accusing them black book of kickbacks, the architect of modern of embezzling that £50 million from FIFA and a ISL bribes, the tall, angular, grey-haired, reticent number of related fi nancial crimes. fi gure of Jean-Marie Weber. Subsequently Hildbrand’s report has been Blatter was sending a clear signal. Jean-Marie adopted by the Zug Prosecutor’s offi ce and the was to be protected. He was too important to case has been sent for trial [...] be messed with. He knew too much. Jean-Marie knows everything. Raid at FIFA’s headquarters The Zug authorities knew what pressures But that won’t be the end of the story. they were up against. Undeterred, they hired in Now – let’s wind the clock back to May 2005 one of their former Investigating Magistrates who when Magistrate Hildbrand issues his criminal had gone to live in Vienna. His name is Thomas indictment. His job was fi nished, everybody Hildbrand, an investigator of great integrity and thought he had gone home to his private practice great determination. A man with a developed nose in Vienna. for corruption. Hildbrand was given the FIFA case Then on November 3, 2005 occurred the and promptly disappeared from public view. most catastrophic thing ever for FIFA. Hildbrand But Blatter was hearing what was going on, was back! With a team of detectives he raided who was being questioned, what documents and FIFA House! He seized documents and went back bank records Hildbrand was gathering from the to Zug to study them. English investigative reporter and author, Andrew Jennings, wreckage of the ISL company. Thanks to the most reliable of sources, summed up the investigations leading to court case This was disastrous. Decades of kickbacks [BBC reporter] James Oliver and I were given against the ISL marketing company. were being uncovered. What could be done? confi rmation that as a result of information 32 playthegame | magazine 2008 GOVERNANCE obtained during the ISL embezzlement investi- gation, Hildbrand had been instructed to launch a second investigation. Blatter didn’t issue a press release about this raid. He never talks about it in public. Neither do the Juan José Marroquín from other 23 men on FIFA’s Executive Committee. […] Guatemala was documenting Play the Game 2007 for use in That was November 2005 and as ever, a documentary about corruption Hildbrand disappeared from sight. Then in April in sport. 2006 he emerged in a courtroom in Vaduz in Liechtenstein, neighbouring Switzerland. It was the excellent reporter Jean-Francois Tanda who got hold of crucial evidence. It emerged that this was Hildbrand’s second application to the court. He’d been there earlier, asking to use documents from two secret ISL- owned offshore enterprises in his case against the ISL executives. He was given that permission by the Vaduz judge. Now he was back – he wanted to use these documents again in his new investigation. Bribes for TV and marketing rights The fi rst enterprise was a Foundation ISL had set up in Liechtenstein. It was called Nunca – Spanish for “Never.” In documents fi led separately in a Berlin court, one of the shareholders of ISL described Conference gives the function of Nunca as “to pay bribes to obtain licences for TV and marketing rights for sports events, for example, the football World Cup.” leg up to young fi lm In our parallel investigations, James and I discovered that in the late 1990s ISL had secretly transferred nearly £20 million to Nunca to pay bribes into the new century. producer But the money wasn’t paid out from Nunca. It travelled across the Atlantic to another company set up in the British Virgin Islands. It was called Sun- by Kirsten Sparre For a young fi lmmaker trying to penetrate bow and if you were on the secret Sunbow money the murky world of sports corruption, Play the distribution list, the sun would shine forever. A young man from Guatemala was present Game has proven to be an invaluable source of Back in Vaduz in April last year, less than with his camera at almost every session information and networking opportunities. two months before the World Cup kicked off in of Play the Game. The man is Juan José “I have read everything on Play the Game’s Germany, the court was told by Hildbrand that Marroquin who was busy documenting the website, and at this conference I have been given the liquidator of the bankrupt ISL company had conference for use in an upcoming docu- the chance to interact with people who have secretly forced some of the sports offi cials who mentary fi lm about corruption in sport. great experience in this fi eld,” says Marroquin took bribes to repay some of the money. who was also excited about the attitude to The court was then told that Hildbrand was Marroquin has studied sports administration and networking at Play the Game. investigating his belief that the money had not is an avid football fan. It was during his studies, “I have been treated as an equal here. been repaid by the crooks – but had been repaid he became aware of widespread corruption in Everyone is on the same playing fi eld, and I am by FIFA! […] football in his home country, and now he wants just as important as those doing it for a long In February this year Magistrate Hildbrand to produce a documentary fi lm that will open time.” turned up in South Germany with some tough the eyes of fans to the wrong-doings taking Over the next year, Marroquin will travel to questions for a potential – but unwilling – witness. place in their names and for their money. a number of countries to make interviews and Hildbrand’s investigation has typically gone “I want to use examples from the fi lm on location for cases of sports corruption quiet again – he doesn’t talk about it – but I can conference to mirror a case in Guatamala,” he has learnt about at Play the Game. He plans assure you that it continues. […] Marroquin explains. to fi nish the fi lm by the beginning of 2009. Cross your fi ngers that Hildbrand does the job. The signs are promising – and that will be the end of an era of FIFA corruption. “I got inspired by other journalists who are chasing for stories, Read the whole presentation on mostly in the corruption part of our sports world. I think this www.playthegame.org gives me new energy to go on with these subjects”. John Volkers, Journalist de Volkskrant, the Netherlands. 33 GOVERNANCE HARD LESSONS from fi ght against football corruption in Kenya After years of by Kirsten Sparre The conference carried the ambitious subtitle “Creating coalitions for good governance in turmoil, a new league Cleaning up corruption in Kenyan football sport”, and engineer Bob Munro is a veteran of has been formed has turned out to be a much larger project such coalitions. In 2003, he was instrumental in than expected. But after seven years’ hard setting up an alternative football league in Kenya based on values work, Bob Munro, the Canadian-born for eleven Premier League clubs who shared a such as democracy, chairman of top club Mathare United, can wish to play corruption-free football, and he holds begin to see progress. important posts such as Vice Chairman of the transparency and Kenyan Premier League Ltd. and Chairman of the equality “I expected it would only take 1-2 years to clean football club Mathare United FC that is part of the up the sport. I was wrong. There were many, many Mathare Youth Sports Association. times over the past seven years when I wanted to give up. But that was no longer a personal choice A false dawn as I have never broken a promise to the Mathare For a while the strategy of an alternative football youth.