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Panorama: FIFA exec asked me to put match fee in his personal account
A British football chief has revealed how a FIFA vice-president asked him to pay Football Association money into his own personal bank account.
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The former chairman of the Scottish FA, John McBeth, has told 91Èȱ¬ Panorama (Monday 22 October, 8.30pm, 91Èȱ¬ One) that top FIFA executive Jack Warner asked him to make the match fee cheque payable to him personally, following an international match in Edinburgh.
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It is one of a series of suspect dealings involving FIFA. Panorama asks why FIFA's ethics committee – run by Lord Sebastian Coe – is not taking action.
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Other questions about foul play directed at world football's governing body include:
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- Why a FIFA official, branded a liar by an American judge, is now General Secretary of FIFA – the second most powerful position in world football.
- Why no-one has been prosecuted after falsifying documents in the same case – a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
- And why a FIFA Executive Committee member was allowed to pay his national team players only £500 each for their participation in the World Cup, despite securing lucrative sponsorship deals – and then blacklisted them from the national team when they complained.
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Panorama asked Lord Coe why the ethics committee was not looking into these issues. He declined to answer or give any details of his job, referring all queries to FIFA, the body he is supposed to be monitoring.
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McBeth first expressed concerns about corruption in FIFA after being chosen to fill Britain's post on the FIFA Executive Committee in May this year.
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He pointed the finger at football officials in Africa and the Caribbean – but was dropped just days before starting his new job amid accusations of bigotry and racism from Vice-President Warner.
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However, he is adamant that this was a merely a smokescreen and that he was sailing far too close to the truth for some FIFA members.
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"There are one or two people on that executive committee that I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw," says McBeth.
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"I was talking about the football people that I've met and dealt with in Africa and the Caribbean. It was football people I was talking about. I wasn't talking about the nation.
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"I'm not a racist bigot and I think it probably says more about Jack and him trying to deflect away the criticism that I was making of corruption."
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Speaking for the first time on the subject, McBeth has revealed how Warner, who represents FIFA in North and Central America and the Caribbean, asked him to pay a match fee directly into his personal account.
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He says: "Trinidad and Tobago came to play Scotland at Hibernian's ground in Easter Road in Edinburgh. And after the game he asked me to make a cheque out to his personal account for the game.
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"And I said 'We don't do that, it should go to the association.'
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"I then found out later that he'd approached several other staff in my organisation ... to do exactly the same thing."
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Previously, Warner was found guilty by FIFA's ethics committee of touting thousands of World Cup tickets through his family travel company in Trinidad. Yet he escaped with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
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He was also accused of "ripping off" Trinidad and Tobago's players following last year's World Cup.
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The team's goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, who has played for West Ham, Reading and Newcastle, has spoken of his anger for the first time.
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He has told Panorama: "Well, before the World Cup we negotiated with Jack Warner for a percentage of the commercial revenues generated as a result of our taking part in the World Cup. When we got back we were told we'd amassed less than £500 a man.
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"Well, we wanted to have somebody independent have a look at the books and tell us whether those figures are right or wrong, which of course Mr Warner and the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation [T&TFF] flatly refused. So we had to hire a lawyer and initiate court proceedings.
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"Well he immediately labelled us 'the mercenary few'. He accused us of being greedy, of holding the T&TFF to ransom, and effectively we were ruled out of any future participation in international football."
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He and his teammates were blacklisted from playing for Trinidad and Tobago again – but, when they asked the ethics committee to intervene, they were shocked to discover they had little chance of an independent decision.
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"We wrote to FIFA asking them to refer to the ethics committee because we felt we'd done nothing wrong. They wrote back to us and said that it was an in-house [Federation] problem and that Mr Warner would have to decide on whether he broke any rules."
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Warner claims to have subsequently lifted the blacklist, but Hislop added: "We are the footballers, we are the ones who step over the white line and FIFA were saying that all of a sudden the administrators had become far more important than the players."
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The Panorama investigation has also found that some of FIFA's actions in relation to a sponsorship deal amounted to criminal activity, punishable by up to five years in prison in FIFA's home nation, Switzerland.
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FIFA attempted to drop its sponsor MasterCard and replace it with Visa, contrary to a long-standing agreement, and was taken to court in New York by MasterCard, where the judge condemned its actions.
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The man who led FIFA's marketing team, Jerome Valcke, admitted lying to both MasterCard and Visa.
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The prosecution told the court: "Disraeli once said there were three kinds of lies – lies, darned lies and statistics. We have learned from the FIFA marketing group that there are more.
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"We have learned about the six degrees of prevarication – white lies, commercial lies, bluffs, pure lies, straight untruths and perjury. Mr Valcke even lied when testifying about his lies. But in FIFA's world that's ok."
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And the judge agreed: "Mr Valcke and his team's dealings with FIFA's long-standing partner MasterCard constitutes the opposite of 'fair play' and violates FIFA's own requirement that 'its negotiators deal honourably with its business partners'.
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"FIFA's marketing director lied to both MasterCard, FIFA's long-time partner, and to Visa, its negotiating counterpart, to both of which FIFA under Swiss law owed a duty of good faith."
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FIFA swiftly announced that it had "parted company" with Valcke.
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It then emerged that someone at FIFA had falsified documents in the case – a crime punishable under Swiss law by a sentence of up to five years in jail.
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Yet, despite his involvement in the case, Valcke has since been allowed to return to FIFA and is now General Secretary – the second most powerful position in world football.
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Despite the serious nature of the case, Lord Coe's ethics committee has took no action. And when Panorama asked Lord Coe why he was not looking into this case he declined to talk.
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FIFA Executive Committee members Jack Warner and Jerome Valcke also declined to comment.
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Panorama, Monday 22 October 2007 at 8.30pm on 91Èȱ¬ One
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