South Africa Football Association president Danny Jordaan has admitted the organisation made a $10 million payment in 2008, but denied it was in any way a bribe to FIFA for the 2010 World Cup.
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Two separate investigations are being carried out by American and Swiss authorities for alleged rampant and long-running corruption within FIFA.
The biggest scandal to rock world football erupted last Wednesday when seven FIFA officials were arrested in their Zurich hotel as part of the US probe. They and seven others were charged for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies that ran from 1991 to present day, and accused of taking or conspiring to solicit for $150 million in bribes.
I still say we did not pay $10mil ,Your inference of what Dr Jordaan said Its like mixing oil with water #wedidnotbribe
— RSA Min of Sport (@MbalulaFikile) May 31, 2015
An example cited in US papers was the 2004 selection process for the 2010 World Cup, with investigators claiming that South African officials paid $10m to former FIFA vice president Jack Warner – one of the 14 indicted – to secure the bid.
“I haven’t paid a bribe or taken a bribe from anybody in my life. We don’t know who is mentioned there (in the indictment),” Jordaan told the Sunday Independent.
“How could we have paid a bribe for votes four years after we had won the bid?”, adding the payment was South Africa’s contribution towards CONCACAF’s football development fund. Warner was then also president of CONCACAF.
Warner, meanwhile, embarrassed himself yesterday when he launched an online tirade at American authorities for his arrest, even citing a spoof news story as ‘proof’ of a conspiracy against him.
During an eight-minute video posted on his Facebook page, Warner claimed the recent FBI investigation was only launched after the United States failed to secure hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup.
However, part of Warner’s claims featured him brandishing a printout of a story from satirical website, The Onion, which said FIFA had brought the World Cup forward to host it in America this summer.
In a barely coherent address, Warner said: “Then I look to see that FIFA has frantically announced, 2015, this year… the World Cup, beginning May 27. If FIFA is so bad, why is it that the USA wants to keep the FIFA World Cup?”
