David Beckham and Qatargate: The Plot Thins
Posted on January 31, 2013 7:40 pm
Back in late 2010, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had Qatari crown prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani ’round to the Elysee Palace for dinner and a chat. And as luck would have it – or possibly because he loves the palace chef’s blanquette de veau – Nicky invited UEFA President and former Nancy boy Michel Platini to drop by as well.
By that time, everybody knew that Platini had long since pledged his vote in the 2022 FIFA World Cup balloting – scheduled for a mere nine days later – to the US. In the bag. Done deal.
Thus it was that, after polishing off the last of the profiteroles, Platini found himself listening quietly as Sarkozy begged the Prince to redeem the sad state of French football with a huge infusion of Qatari cash and help shore up the French economy by signing a bunch of commercial contracts.
The Qatari royal promised to give it some serious thought. A day or two later Platini decided that, come to think of it, holding a World Cup in the desert in summertime was a swell notion and he was behind it 100%.
It’s worth noting that since that gala evening – and Platini’s vote – Qatar has purchased Paris St-Germain and is spending money on them like a merchant seaman on shore leave (see: Beckham, David) and launched beIN Sport in France, going from not existing at all in mid-2011 to now owning the broadcast rights to Ligue 1 and – quelle suprise! – Platini’s own UEFA Champions Cup and Europa Cup matches.
Fast forward to this week when the magazine France Football published a fifteen page expose accusing Qatar of blatantly buying the World Cup by, among other things, using their money to strongarm Platini into voting their way. Platini was outraged:
“To believe that my choice to vote for Qatar 2022 was in exchange for agreements between the French state and Qatar is pure speculation and are only the views of those who write these lies” he proclaimed, in a non-denial for the ages.
Swearing that Sarkozy “would never have allowed himself to ask me to vote for Qatar 2022 because he knows that I am my own man” he ended by, as they all do these days – threatening to sue anyone who claimed otherwise.
Now in fact one tends to doubt that Sarkozy explicitly asked Platini to change his vote. On the other hand, Platini cannot possibly pretend that the whole point of inviting him to dinner that night was not so he could hear how badly France needed Qatar’s financial help. Otherwise, Sarkozy would have invited a hot French actress like Laetitia Casta or Marion Cotillard, who are probably much better conversationalists than the dour, rumpled and boring Platini, and definitely more fun to look at.
Now of course none of this is exactly news. The basic outline of the story was published in England over two years ago and even your humble correspondent has referred to it on occasion.
The big deal now is twofold:
First this isn’t the British tabloids – which are easy to brush off as being typically nuts – we’re talking about here, this is France Football, one of the most reputable sports publications in Europe. Among other things, they – not FIFA – are the people who award the Ballon d’Or, which was merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 2010.
News of the World or The Sun they ain’t, and as a result they’re impossible for Platini (and FIFA) to ignore.
The second contribution is that now the scandal has a name: Qatargate.
Now I’m normally not a big fan of the whole trite “whatever the hell it is, slap -gate on the end so people will know it’s a bad thing” meme which is so popular amongst the chattering classes. That said, it’s been tiresome to have to keep writing about “the shocking, openly corrupt Qatari World Cup 2022 bid wherein their agents scoured the globe buying votes with mountains of money and arrogance because they knew FIFA didn’t have the stones to stop them”.
A shorthand term has utility and if we have to live with Qatargate, then so be it.
The rest of the France Football piece, which ran to 15 pages, contained a laundry list of the details of the story which are, to fans in Britain and the US, all too depressingly familiar but which are coming as shocking news to many in Europe, among them being:
- Qatar propping up desperate, close-to-bankrupt Argentine football with a massive infusion of cash channeled through their decrepit and disgustingly corrupt FIFA ExCo member Julio Grondona.
- Nigerian Amos Adamu was suspended from the ExCo just prior to the vote after a sting conducted by the Sunday Times caught him on tape openly negotiating the price of his vote.
- Issa Hayatou (Cameroon) and Jacques Anouma (Ivory Coast) were named by a former employee of the Qatari bid committee, Phaedra Al Majid, as having both accepted $1.5 million in return for their votes. FIFA tried to launch an ivestigation but Al Majid suddenly recanted and immediately disappeared back to Qatar where she remains secluded, silent and very rich.
- Since-resigned Brazilian football grandee Ricardo Texiera was proven to have mysteriously profited mightily from several massive construction efforts in partnership with heretofore unheard-of Middle Eastern “development firms”.
- Spain’s Angel Maria Villar, who had a (illegal) vote-swapping deal with Qatar, was furious when Russia won the vote for 2018 instead of his own Spain-Portugal bid, but an obscenely lucrative “friendly” in Qatar was quickly arranged and he fell silent.
- Blatter admitted a year ago that Qatar colluded with Spain and Portugal to trade votes for their World Cup bids in violation of FIFA regulations, in effect contradicting an earlier investigation by the world football body that denied that there had been a vote swapping deal. “I’ll be honest” Seppy told reporters, “there was a bundle of votes between Spain and Qatar.”
- Aspire, the Qatari sports agency, dumping huge sums of money for “youth initiatives” on countries which, coincidentally, have ExCo delegates.
There’s more of course – much more – that a lot of European fans are reading about for the first time.
Which is nice and all, but probably won’t change a thing.
American attorney Michael Garcia, a former Vice President of Interpol and the guy most people expected Barack Obama to name as head of the FBI before he decided to extend the incumbent, is now in charge of FIFA’s Ethics Panel Investigations Panel, and after he delivers his much-anticipated report on the ISL scandal to the ExCo in March he and his people will begin delving into both the Russia and Qatar World Cup balloting.
(Not much is heard about the Russia process, possibly because the Russian mobsters who bought that one are a) smart enough not to leave a trail and b) people who rat them out have an unfortunate tendency to disappear.)
But it’s doubtful that Garcia will find enough to get the vote overturned. Much as with Mohammad bin Hammam, where there was no doubt at all that he gave Jack Warner that money to pass around – where the hell else would it have come from? – there’s much evidence but little proof.
Still, it was heartwarming to see Sepp Blatter huddling with the Qatari Crown Prince in a corner of the stadium after a friendly, deep in conversation for several minutes and then, 12 hours later, having bin Hammam suddenly fax FIFA his resignation dropping all contest of his ban and promising to shut up forever.
And of course, as noted by several learned observers in this space, Sepp Blatter’s recent, unprompted – and wholly unnecessary – comments about how the US has somehow failed in its promise to deliver a really Crackerjack professional football league was nothing more than another attempt to legitimize the Qatar vote.
It makes you believe that, at least on some level, both FIFA and the Qataris are feeling some heat. There’s not much doubt that bin Hammam fully intended to continue his fight but the Royal family told him he was bringing too much attention to Qatari footballing corruption and he had to go.
Of course Qatar was already under the gun due to the appalling working conditions, amounting to gross abuse and treatment which would get people arrested in most western countries, under which foreign workers are laboring as they begin the projects necessary to hold WC 2022. Having Human Rights Watch condemn you as the next best thing to slavers is something not even the Qataris can ignore.
They need more ugly publicity over all of this like they need a few truckloads of sand. Or space heaters.
Be all of that as it may, as you see and hear about David Beckham signing up with PSG today for some obscene amount of money so that he can do God knows what for them, feel free to chuckle a bit about the irony:
The only reason he’s going there is for Qatari money which he’s being paid as part of the deal by which that country bought the 2022 World Cup.
And people say that soccer is boring.
See? This is yet another reason to drill into our massive US oil reserves which will crush OPEC, so countries like Qatar will become nothing more than a backdrop for the next remake of Max Max Beyond Thunderdome (starring Colin Farrel, of course). That and gas below $1.50/gal.
Expansive Imperial Isolationism, I say!!
Edit: “Former Nancy boy Platini”? When did he stop being one? Yes, I get the double entendre.
Qatar doesn’t have a particularly large amount of oil, and certainly isn’t much of a player (if at all) in our import market.
Now natural gas, they have. Lots of. Enormous quantities of. But they don’t export any to us.
Thats because we also have natural gas in spades
The hell, you say.
Point being, Qatar is not part of OPEC and our activities in the energy market will have no bearing on their future (for a lot of reasons).
Now, whether or not we retain Al Udeid and the 5th Fleet’s HQ in neighboring Bahrain will have a rather large impact.
Some soccer stuff shouldn’t determine whether the USA destroys it’s environment. TX and LA are seeing more erosion, collapses, and EARTHQUAKES because of frack drilling. The BP oil spill is still fresh in our minds.
And with oil and gas subsidies, gas will never be $1.50. Not when looking at the whole picture.
Soccer isn’t that important. Neither is cheap gas. Get over it.
Yeah and maybe slightly behind that reason in importance the fact that the Saudis chop off servant womens and homosexuals heads in a public square.
I think some American compromisingng their standards for nationalistic reasons; like driving a four door full size pickup with only ten litter V8 engine instead of twelve could be fantasticic idea. Other motorists may make fun but if the bigest thing they haul on a daily basis is a super sized meal from a drive through, they may not notice.
What the hell does Saudi Arabia have to do with Qatar?
And after about 2 minutes you will see an announcement of a brand spanking new oil pipeline being built to China. You forget they also buy oil and have money to spend.
But Beckham’s giving his salary to a children’s charity. Therefore, only a cynic would criticize him. The other shoe on this is not scheduled to be dropped from the Enola Gay, why do you ask?
Can’t wait till Qatar loses the World Cup and it is awarded to Mexico!
That has about as much chance as a snowball in the former country.
Aheh.
Satirical comment, but it IS a throwback to how they/we got the World Cup in ’86!
Maybe Qatar-qat? Not sure how you’d pronounce it, though.
Like Tater-tot? lol!
b) people who rat them out have an unfortunate tendency to disappear.
In fun, James Bond style ways.
Speaking of…
…Can we just admit these two World Cups are Bond Villain ploys?
Alongside PSG and Chelsea?
I sometimes wish the blogs had a “rep” button.
Qatar-gate makes perfect sense because the proper way to “say” Qatar makes it sound like Water. its not ka-tar like guitar. Its Qatter, like Water.
I thought it was like “gutter” and in “Cutter”?
I long for the days when Beijing was Peking, Kolkotta was Calcutta, Mumbai was Bombay and Tejas was Texas.
Aren’t they anymore?!
In Portuguese, at least, we kept them: Pequim, Calcutá, Bombaim.
Don’t want to be a party-spoiler here. The France Football article is a decent piece of journalism and good for the non-initiated to get a grip on the subject. However, it neglects to talk about how all the other candidates (bar Australia) tried to do the exact same thing, with less success. It was a bit like the Lance Armstrong story. Everybody was doping and the best at it ended up going all the way. The whole process was tainted in shit.
The five finalists for 2022 were Australia, Japan, South Korea, Qatar and the United States.
Since you’ve excluded Australia, that means you believe the US, Japan and SK had agents traveling the globe meeting with footballingofficials and offering them millions of dollars in bribes in return for their votes.
That’s quite an accusation.
In all three countries commercial bribery is illegal (as it is in most non-feudal countries, which is one reason why Platini is upset about the accusation) and that leaves aside the question of just where Sunil Gulati – who is many things but not a felon – would get 20 or 30 million bucks to hand out to FIFA ExCo members.
(Of course there’s the famous case of ExCo member Charles Dempsey who fled town just before the vote for 2006 after being offered a cuckoo clock and a ham, which is monetarily a bit short of enough money to rescue Argentina)
Yes, the process is and always has been pretty shady, but log rolling, luxury goody bags, pricey hookers and football-related quid pro quos are one thing and million dollar cash bribes are something else.
I wasn’t only talking about 2022 but also about 2018.
About the US, Remember that Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner were supporters of the US candidacy as well and they didn’t have to comply with the USA law.
As per the bribes, the problem is that the France Football piece offers no proof of anything. It was good for regular people to understand what happened, but it wasn’t really ground breaking either in journalistic or legal grounds.
There was a fantastic piece from someone I follow on Twitter that explained quite well the shortcomings of the FF investigation, unfortunately I can’t find it, damn it.
Jack Warner voted for Qatar.
He also voted for Sepp Blatter, despite passing out Bin Hammam’s liquid cash bribes.
Oh really? And how do you know he voted for Qatar?
Doesn’t having an office in New York place CONCACAF under US jurisdiction? I’m pretty sure BP was subject to US environmental law, to pick an example off the top of my head.
On top of which, if you’re going to claim that Chuck Blazer scurried around the globe passing out bribes, you’d better be prepared to do a couple of things:
First, explain where he got the 20 or 30 million bucks.
Second, go hire yourself a really good lawyer because accusing someone of a felony is highly actionable, particularly in the absence of a single shred of evidence.
I wish you luck on both counts.
Man, seriously, stop with the Blazer defense, it’s getting too paranoid. I’m not accusing him of passing out bribes, but neither are the France Football journalists accusing the Qatar candidacy. Remember that the Concacaf bribes were for Bin Hammam’s candidacy, not for Qatar 2022.
Your definition of paranoid is obviously different from mine.
I don’t think saying that “as far as I know no one has ever proven he took a dime from anyone illegally” qualifies as “paranoia”. On the other hand, implying – as you most certainly did – that the man was involved in trying to buy votes for the US without even a scintilla of evidence of any kind other than your own imagination, well now THAT begins to look a lot like paranoia.
And thanks for the info on bin Hammam’s cash. CONCACAF you say? Wow. Somebody ought to write about that.
As for the rest, saying that France Football does not accuse the Qataris of handing out cash bribes is inaccurate. They do, in detail, and in the specific cases I cited.
Look, I get your basic point, namely that World Cup bidding has always been a sleazy deal, and you’re absolutely right. But you go way beyond the pale when you flatly state that the only difference between the Qatari bid and everyone else is that they played the game better is utterly ridiculous and without basis in fact.
Bottom line, they bought the votes. You’re just about the only person on Earth who is now disputing this and good for you. But please do it elsewhere. You have a blog of your own where you can spin all the fantasy stories about Qatari goodness and American bribery you want.
Finally – and most outrageously – his main contention is that Qatar’s actions fell into some kind of gray area of the rules; “working the margins” he calls it.
That demonstrates an appalling lack of knowledge or understanding of FIFA statutes and is simply, demonstrably and unambiguously wrong.
Man, you’re getting it wrong. I’m not saying they didn’t buy the votes in the wider sense of the term. We all know they did, without any shame. It’s just that they played the system. The bribes you’re talking about are not bribes per se, at least they are not described as such in the investigation (other than the Majid story). They are all “exchanges of favours”, which is the way it usually works in FIFA (or the IOC, at least until very recently). The Grondona deal was about TV and friendly matches, the France stuff about investments and so on, there weren’t bribes in the purest sense of the term and thus they were not illegal per se (until we know otherwise, maybe Garcia’s investigation will reap its fruits, I really hope so).
Warner was an idiot because he knew how the game was played but somehow he thought he could bend the rules even more, probably because he had always been able to get his way. Blazer is an expert of playing the game and much shrewder than Warner. That’s why he’s still there.
And you don’t need the government money to strike deals. That’s how Qatar did it, but you can use Concacaf resources, agents, third-parties, private investors there are a LOT of ways. And everybody try to use their influences at those levels, denying it it’s just too innocent.
And I know I have my blog, but I usually write about other things. You are the expert on the subject but I don’t think a bit of dissent is bad if it can lead to a healthy debate.
Ah, and for the record I wanted the World Cup to be staged in the US, for various reasons. I’m as outraged as all of you about the Qatar choice, I just don’t believe anyone is innocent at this point and real evidence is needed to change anything (which I don’t think will happen).
It’s all about traffic of influences. If you read the 15 pages of the report, it doesn’t talk about bribes directly. For the same reasons you are stating, they don’t show any evidence so they are liable to legal action. The Al Majid thing everybody already knew and the Adamu stuff was disguised as the creation of a youth academy in Nigeria (a strategy that you probably know well from the Warner times).
In these things, everybody resorts to the same smutty tactics, essentially because everybody knows they are the only way to win. Don’t give me the “we were clean, they weren’t” thing because I will never buy it. Qatar were way better at it and prepared to get a lot farther. And you and I know that nothing will happen and they will keep their WC, as they knew when they were doing their pseudo-illegal tactics better than anyone else.
And… a nice piece on the subject by James Corbett http://mondialblog.tumblr.com/post/41778888466/qatargate
His main point seems to come at the end, where he says the main difference between the Qatar bid and everybody else is that they were “better resourced” and “prepared to go farther” than the rest of the crowd.
So it’s his- and apparently your – theory that Sunil Gulati would have happily handed out huge bags of money too, but he didn’t have the money or the balls.
Now I’m no big fan of the man by any means but that’s going a bit far don’t you think?
Ditto, apparently, Lord Triesman, Prince William (AKA The Duke of Cambridge, titular head of the FA), and their counterparts in Japan, Australia and everywhere else.
It’s an outrageous charge and without basis in fact.
I don’t buy it. As Bill mentioned, it’s hard to get appropriations from the U.S. Congress or its counterparts in Australia, Japan or South Korea for bribery. It would be similarly hard to convince the treasurers of the USSF and its counterparts in those other countries to throw down tens of millions of dollars over a couple of years to bribe and then millions more in incidentals to deal with the fallout.
In a country like ours, Japan, South Korea, or Australia, someone involved with international bribes would want to keep it off the books since it would land them in jail.
The United States, Japan, South Korea, and Australia also have legions of lawyers and audit accountants who are just looking for billable hours. I haven’t researched the tax laws of the other countries but I think the IRS would have some questions if the USSF’s books suddenly had a huge discrepancy between revenues/dues, and expenditures/retained earnings.
Big difference from an authoritarian kingdom.
In Australia’s, their bid committee got A$45 million.
http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/168438/ffa-receive-a45m-world-cup-bid
That’s a pretty large figure for ordinary expenses, and it was announced without very elaborate standards of scrutiny. I think the Aussies kind of winked and nodded and knew where that money was headed.
For the US bid, the Fed didn’t have that kind of money, and the government wasn’t going to give any, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the sponsors gave a little sumpin sumpin here and there.
I’ll try not to be shocked when France Football announces they are under new management.
so is beckham giving up his salary because it is dirty money? I know he does not come across as the smartest guy, but he always seems to make the right moves. and I assume he moves in the circles of power that would have clued him in on all this corruption, sorry I mean “fun”
Or is he giving it up because of the new tax laws in France?
The new tax laws are primarily based on capital gains and other such wealth. Income tax is actually remaining pretty much static.
I don’t think there’s anything nefarious about it. He’s just trying to add to cement his legacy (or public image, rather) as “an all around good guy.”
or is he giving it up for the kids?
or is he giving it up because he and Posh will get paid huge sums of money for a few soft porn pics to sell French perfume and underwear?
beckham-gate
Al Gore is behind the whole thing.
So if this is Qatargate, does that mean that Blatter is Nixon, bin Hamman is Maurice Stans and Blazer is Deep
Throat?
The real problem is that bin Hammam is John Mitchell and Michel Platini is Bob Haldeman.
Chuck Blazer is G. Gordon Liddy.
Someone please tell me that Allaway and I aren’t the only people who know what the hell we’re talking about.
Liddy has a radio show now, and it is ridiculous.
I’m just waiting for Alexander Butterfield to testify and blow this whole thing wide open.
I was eight when Nixon resigned. To be fair, I had been reading the paper every morning since I was six or seven, but Peanuts and Marmaduke did a poor job of keeping up with current events, and the sports pages, in those days, were mainly just game reports and whether the coach should be fired or not. I do recall going to see All The President’s Men when it first came out, if that counts.
You’re not entirely on your own, but I had just turned 13 when Nixon resigned office.
I’m looking forward to the WC in Quatar, it will be nice to go to games in different stadiums yet stay the whole time in one hotel room. You could go to the WC for a week and take in 9 games. Plus, it’s nice that they won’t be bankrupting some poor country with expensive stadiums. And it is too soon for the US, we just had a WC in ’94. Perhaps they should legalize buy-outs; if Quatar wants to help Argentine football in order to get the WC, why not let them?
Keep looking forward to the WC, but plan on the USA hosting. I for one have never believed that it will actually happen in Qatar.
The bribe-takers will be long retired or mouldering in their graves or elsewhere, and the realities will have likewise asserted themselves to reveal what a fiasco this was from the beginning. Nothing more than a blatant “2 for the price of 1″ cash grab by the crooks at FIFA, knowing that they wouldn’t be around when it blew up.
See you in Chicago.
Same here. Never understood how a country the size of New Jersey, with less population than the combined total of Edmonton & Calgary, with 1 1/2 cities & 40°C got the World Cup instead of US with >50 giant stadiums (or Australia with many cities & soccer mad ethnic groups).
Had the Gulf States region got the Cup (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman & UAE) I would find that very acceptable to develop football in the entire region & to spread the “wealth”.
Makes Canada with 37 million people & a dozen stadiums seem like a giant who can host more than just the next women’s world cup or the 2007 U20 WC.
Bottom line, looking back in hindsight, u got the feeling for the first time watching that guy with giant teeth smiling for Qatar when they won that something just stinks about this whole 2022 WC decision from the very minute they even announced they were going to have a 2022 World Cup in 2010.
“To believe that my choice to vote for Qatar 2022 was in exchange for agreements between the French state and Qatar is pure speculation and are only the views of those who write these lies”
Sounds like a denial to me.
Interesting that he avoids saying that they are lies. He does avoid perjuring himself with those statements if it turns out to be true.
Maybe FIFA should just charge World Cup hosting fees and award the world cup to the highest bidder.
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