Translated material
Bright dictator
Who is Joseph Blatter - the eternal president of FIFA
In FIFA-a loud corruption scandal: two vice presidents of the Federation and five more high-ranking officials were arrested. Against this background, Joseph Blatter was re -elected by the president of the federation. This is the fifth term of the 79-year-old sports functionary. During his reign, he managed to tame sports officials from poor countries who obediently vote for him in all elections. Bloomberg tells who Joseph Blatter is, and what he turned FIFA into.
Joseph Blatter is 79 years old. During his life, he managed to marry three times, make a career in FIFA and turn it into a powerful, rich, but absolutely opaque organization. His press cannot stand it, calling "the most successful bloodless dictator of the century." But football officials from poor countries adore him. The main football in the Dominican Republic Osiris Guzman recently compared Joseph Blatter with Jesus, Nelson Mandelia and Winston Cherchil at the same time.
FIFA - International Football Federation - a large corporation that unites 209 national associations. These associations are included in six confederations. Over the past four years (by December 2014), FIFA revenue amounted to $ 5.72 billion. The main part of the earnings of the federation is the sale of rights to television broadcasting - the 2014 World Cup was a record for the audience of a sporting event. In addition, FIFA receives money from sponsors, which include Coca-Cola, Nike and Adidas; For four years, the Federation received 1.6 billion sponsorship money. “Sponsors pay money that is controlled by corrupt people, which they know about. But for them, television are more important than ideas about morality, ”said Gvido Tononi, who worked in FIFA from 1984 to 2003, including the adviser to Blatter.
How the money earned is spent is unknown for certain. A significant part goes to hold the World Cup, employees' salaries and other expenses. Information about the general salary fund is disclosed, but the salary of Blatter himself is kept in strict secret. “We will hide this information, so you cannot find it. We do not publish it, first of all, because we are not obliged to do this, ”said the head of the Federation of Finance of the Federation. According to sources, Blatter receives a million Swiss francs per year plus bonuses.
Joseph Blatter has been led by FIFA for almost 20 years. He won his first elections in 1998. It is believed that Joao Avlange, the predecessor of Blatter, taught him to win the elections as president of the federation. Avlange preferred to rely on poor countries that are ready to vote for money - the same technique for its career is also used by Blatter, notes Bloomberg.
On the eve of his first elections in 1998, Blatter lent the aircraft at Mohammed Bin Hammam, who at that time the Asian Confederation of Football, and went on a tour of Africa. On the eve of the vote, African delegates received packages of 50 thousand dollars each, assures David Yallop in his book “How they Stolen the Game”. The former head of UEFA (European Football Association) Lennart Johanson, who was then a Blatter opponent, claims that he has witnesses of bribery. Blatter says that in order to prove such accusations you need to return in 1998, and the machines have not yet been invented.
In 2002-shortly before the new elections-the Secretary General of FIFA (the second person in the organization after Blatter) Michelle of the price-Ruffinen prepared a report in which he accused his boss of usurpation of the authorities. “Today in FIFA is a dictatorship. She collapsed to the personal organization of Blatter, ”the Secretary General wrote. He also accused Blatter of unreasonable expenses. This campaign against Blatter did not lead to anything. Although the Europeans tried to persuade the African countries to vote against him, he won with a great advantage.
In a similar way, Joseph Blatter won the next two campaigns. In 2011, he flew to the city of Pago Pago, the capital of the American Samoa, where the confederation of football of Oceania was held. There he announced that all associations (209 organizations) will receive 300 thousand dollars each, and all confederations (six, including oceania) - $ 7.5 million. For tiny oceania, this is significant money - of course, Blatter is loved there. “Before Blatter became president, you know how much we received from FIFA? Zero. Now it’s clear why we will vote for him? " -then said the vice president of the Confederation of Football Oceania Lee Harmon.
In FIFA, all associations are equivalent. Each of them has a voice-and the voice of Montserrat, where five thousand people live, costs as much as the voice of the 200 million Brazil. Therefore, Joseph Blatter is beneficial that there are more associations in FIFA than states at the UN.
In 2015, each football association will receive 300 thousand dollars from FIFA, as well as 500 thousand dollars as a bonus for a successful world championship. Associations also have the right to ask for money for stadiums and infrastructure development. Those who were lucky enough to make a career in FIFA and enter the Executive Committee are entitled to 300 thousand dollars a year, flights of the first class, five -star hotels and other amenities. The executive committee, among others, includes Russian Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko. After re -election in 2011, Blatter also promised each country to membership in at least one FIFA Committee; A member of the Committee receives $ 300 a day, flies in a business class, they compensate for all expenses.
And yet, despite the fact that stability reigns in FIFA, and Blatter runs permanently for many years, he failed to build an effective money spending system. Say, the Kaymanovs of the islands received two million dollars for the construction of headquarters and football fields for the national team (which, by the way, never made it into the final part of the World Cup). As a result, they built an office and only one field; However, it turned out that the soil was too salty for the grass - it was necessary to cover the field with an artificial lawn.
Another example: in 2010, an earthquake occurred in Haiti, and exactly on the day of the meeting of the local football association. Her President Yves Jean-Bar managed to escape, and the coach of the national team died at the collapse of the headquarters of the association. The next day, Joseph Blatter promised to allocate associations of 250 thousand dollars; Another 500 thousand dollars came from South Korea. All money was transferred to the accounts of the Confederation of Football of North and Central America and the Caribbean Basin (Conkakaf). As a result, Yves Jean-Bar assures, less than half a million dollars reached them. When he complained about this in FIFA, Jack Warner, who headed Concacap, demonstrated an invoice for paying for generators, food and other items for $ 229 thousand. According to Yves Jean-Bara, none of this received in Haiti. About 300 thousand dollars, according to a row, were spent on the transportation of the Haitian team; Moreover, flights were booking through the Warner family travel agency.
Jack Warner in 2011 left the post of Vice President FIFA with a scandal. Shortly before the election of the President of the Federation, he arranged in his Trinidad and Tobago the Conkakaf conference, which was performed by Mohammed Bin Hammam - the one in which the Blatter was picked up by the plane. By that time, Hammam decided to overthrow Blatter (and Warner supported him) and tried to win the elections. They say that at that conference, Warner announced that gifts are provided for all delegates. As a result, everyone distributed 40 thousand dollars each.
The investigation of the case from Haiti is still ongoing, they assure FIFA, although five years have passed. Mohammed Bin Hammam Fifa forever forbade football. Meanwhile, Jack Warner became one of the defendants in the new FBI investigation on corruption.
In 2012, another investigation began. Former American prosecutor Michael Garcia, on the instructions of FIFA himself, found out how honestly Russia and Qatar were selected as the venues of the 2018 and 2022 world and 2022 championships. He prepared a 400-page report that FIFA refused to publish. And the document presented by the public in a truncated form was so distorted that Garcia refused to continue work. True, after the FBI investigation, the Swiss prosecutor's office seemed to have taken up this business and searched the FIFA headquarters.
The main favorite of Joseph Blatter's name is Jeffrey Webb. He is the Vice President of FIFA, the head of the ConcacaF and the Football Federation of the Kaiman Islands. In 2013, Blatter said that Webb would probably once take the post of President FIFA. In the International Federation, he is responsible for finances, and at home he owns a business - he opened a restaurant on shares with the head of the Jamaican football (which was then removed in connection with the scandal with Bin Hammam).
Now Jaifrei Webb is arrested at the request of the United States. He, like two dozen people, is accused of many years of bribery and rollbacks. His patron Joseph Blatter, who, after the scandal with Bin Hammam, stated that there is no crisis in the federation, but there are only difficulties, it seems, the current arrests do not consider a big problem.