FBI spying on football scandal

This video from Britain is called FBI Fifa bugging reports should prompt World Cup investigation – MP.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Fifa investigation needed ‘after FBI bug meetings’

Tuesday 4th November 2014

MP wants world governing body to be reformed

Claims that the FBI persuaded a Fifa executive to bug his meetings during the London 2012 Olympics strengthens the case for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigate World Cup bidding, an MP who is campaigning for Fifa reform said yesterday.

Conservative MP Damian Collins says reports that Chuck Blazer agreed to take a tiny, secret microphone into meetings with other football officials should be enough for the SFO to now investigate.

The New York Daily News has reported that Blazer, the US former Fifa executive committee member, agreed to take a bug hidden inside a key ring into meetings, some of which took place in London. He was under investigation by the FBI and tax authorities for millions in unpaid taxes, the newspaper said.

Those he invited to the meetings included Russia 2018 organising committee chief Alexei Sorokin and Frank Lowy, the head of the Australian 2022 bid, but it is not known whether they did actually meet Blazer.

The SFO said last week it does not have the jurisdiction to investigate World Cup bidding but Collins believes the latest reports on the FBI should make it reconsider.

Collins said: “It’s like something out of a novel, real cloak-and-dagger stuff, and it’s tragic for football the FBI are now apparently resorting to such tactics to get to the truth.

“If the FBI investigation includes meetings that Chuck Blazer held in London during the Olympics, then that should come under the jurisdiction of the SFO.

“The SFO can also investigate organisations with commercial interests in the UK and that would definitely include Fifa.”

Former US federal prosecutor Michael Garcia has finished his investigation into bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, won by Russia and Qatar respectively.

England also made a bid for the 2018 tournament but were eliminated in the first round of voting.

Garcia’s report is now being studied by the head of Fifa’s ethics adjudicatory chamber, German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, but he has said he will not publish it in full.

Collins wants the SFO to demand Fifa send it a copy of the Garcia report.

He said: “The SFO would have reasonable grounds to request to see the Garcia report. What Fifa has to realise is if it is sitting on evidence of bribery and corruption it could be in breach of international law.”