Australia’s 2022 World Cup bid team adopted a code name, "Road Through Babylon," according to THE AUSTRALIAN. It "went to such lengths to conceal its multi-million dollar involvement with one of its agents, Fedor Radmann, the "close associate" of FIFA voting member Franz Beckenbauer, that he was given a passport-protected alias with correspondence only copied in the blind copy field." Internal bid team correspondence and documents indicate that Australia 2022 officials "actively tried to conceal" aspects of Radmann’s role with the bid team because of his ties to Beckenbauer, the German footballer who had a vote on the FIFA exec, an official FIFA investigation has found. FIFA on Wednesday published the Garcia Report into misconduct surrounding the bid process of the '22 vote -- "in which Australia secured just one vote." While much of the report has been known, its "long awaited release" provided further details about the "goings on that senior football officials in Australia and its hired agents were involved in to secure votes." They included the known payment of half a million dollars to "discredited" Trinidad official Jack Warner. Other "fresh details" revealed a tripling of costs to more than A$90,000 to pay for a Caribbean team friendly match in Cyprus "due to repeated extension of demands" from Warner and A$600,000 to Oceania that was to be split between a Tahiti project and an Auckland office. Also unveiled were proposed development program payments to four African countries that, "by chance," had FIFA voting members (THE AUSTRALIAN, 6/28).
SWISS PROBE: In Melbourne, McKenzie & Baker reported Swiss prosecutors examined multi-million dollar Australian taxpayer-funded payments to "controversial lobbyists" hired at the behest of billionaire Frank Lowy to help Australia win the right to host the 2022 World Cup. The examination of Football Federation Australia's records is "part of a major Swiss criminal probe into an alleged corruption conspiracy said to involve a handful of former European football officials," including Beckenbauer. FFA, under Lowy's leadership, hired two consultants with "close ties" to Beckenbauer using part of a A$46M grant from the Rudd government. Swiss authorities interviewed at least one Australian "as part of their investigation." There is no suggestion Lowy or other past or present FFA officials are "targets" of the Swiss probe. While the report does not accuse Lowy or former FFA CEO and current North Melbourne Football Club Chair Ben Buckley of corruption, it "does raise serious questions about their oversight of Australia's taxpayer-funded World Cup bid" (THE AGE, 6/29).
NO SURPRISES: In Sydney, Carly Adno reported FFA said that the Garcia Report does not raise any new "substantive" matters, "insisting all finances pertaining to their failed World Cup 2022 bid were routinely monitored." While FFA acknowledges "mistakes were made" during the bidding process, it has been "transparent with the investigation" and said that its finances were "independently audited." A statement read, "The report does not raise substantive new matters that have not already been the subject of other inquiries and/or media coverage since 2009/2010. It does, however, contain further detail such as email correspondence provided to the inquiry by FFA" (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 6/28).
WHISTLEBLOWER'S TAKE: In Sydney, Michael Lynch wrote while FFA claimed that there is "nothing new and no more to say following the explosive revelations of the Garcia Report," the woman who was the whistleblower "exposing some of the less than savoury aspects" of the Australian World Cup bid said that its publication "should act as a catalyst for change in the way the Australian game is managed." Bonita Mersiades, the woman who was in charge of FFA's media operations during the "fraught" period when the Lowy-led bid was being prosecuted, said, "Nothing that is in the Garcia Report about the Australian bid is a surprise to me. The areas on which he [Garcia] commented are ones that we [she and Garcia] discussed. I hope it provides the impetus for proper reform and change in Australian football" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 6/28).
