have been accused of financial impropriety in the bidding for Qatar
2022 World Cup.
The accusation was contained in a detailed report by The Sunday Times
of London, which called on FIFA to probe the alleged $1 million
bribery offer.
Based on this, FIFA, the world football governing body, has now called
on its top investigator to examine evidence that the winners of the
right to host the 2022 World Cup secretly offered $1 million (N150
million)to Samson, aged 26, whose father was then a member of FIFA's
executive committee.
Documents passed to FIFA by The Sunday Times showed that the Qatar bid
team offered the cash to Samson.
The money, it was alleged, was to fund a dinner and workshop on the
eve of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, though it cost only a
fraction of the sum offered.
The deal was brokered by the Deputy Chief Executive of the Qatar bid,
Ali al-Thawadi, months before the contest in December 2010 to host the
2022 World Cup.
Al-Thawadi denied knowledge of the offer when contacted (by The Sunday
Times) last week. However, after being presented with the evidence,
Qatar 2022 lawyers accepted there had been discussions and a contract
had been drawn up, but said the team had later backed out of the deal
after considering the "relevant FIFA rules."
World Cup bidders are prohibited from entering into any financial
relationship with relatives of the 24 FIFA executive committee
members, who vote to decide the world cup bidders.
Secret documents seen by The Sunday Timesshowed that Samson had been
allegedly offered $1 million to arrange the dinner by the Qatar
committee competing to host the 2022 World Cup, months before his
father was due to vote on which bidder should be allowed to hold the
tournament.
Adamu was one of 24 members of the FIFA executive committee, which
decided where the World Cup was to be held-bestowing international
recognition and billions of pounds in revenues upon the winner.
With so much at stake, it was gathered that the competition could get
dirty, even when FIFA rules prohibited bidders from entering into any
financial relationship with the voters or their relatives to prevent
improper attempts to influence the outcome.
The Sunday Times said it had uncovered an extensive paper trail which
showed how Qatar offered to pay Adamu's son the seven-figure sum to
host a dinner and workshop.
In the end, the amount was believed to have cost about a fifth of the
amount on the table.
Investigation also revealed that al-Thawadi, the deputy chief
executive of the Qatar bid who had brokered the deal with Samson, had
denied any knowledge of the arrangement when he was first approached
last week.
When presented with this newspaper's evidence, Qatar admitted that the
deal had been negotiated but said it had later pulled out after taking
FIFA's rules into consideration.
The funding of the glittering dinner remains shrouded in mystery.
Invoices seen by The Sunday Times indicate that the event, called the
African Legends' gala dinner, cost about $220,000, a sum apparently
way beyond the means of Samson's company which had been set up months
before with only £4,000 in share capital.
Meanwhile, Qatar has said it had no financialinvolvement and that no
other sponsors were publicly linked to the dinner and guests were not
charged for their tickets.
The oil-rich Gulf state has been forced to fend off a string of
bribery allegations since it won the right to host the 2022 finals in
December 2010-but no smoking gun has been found.
Qatar, a tiny nation of 1.6 million people, won with the support of 14
FIFA Executive Committee members despite having no football tradition
and the prospect of temperatures of up to 50 degree Celsius during the
summer, when the competition will be held.
Its bid committee vastly outspent every competitor in its campaign and
Jerome Valcke, the FIFA general secretary, admitted in a leaked e-mail
that Qatar had "bought the WC."
He later said he was referring to the vast amount of money spent on
marketing the bid.
Adamu was allegedly secretly filmed by The Sunday Times in September
2010, three months after the African Legends' dinner, offering to sell
his vote on the 2018 World Cup for a payment of £800,000 into his
personal bank account, which he said, he would use to build football
pitches in Nigeria.
But his 2022 vote was not for sale because he had already pledged it
to Qatar. FIFA later sacked him from the executive committee.
He was stripped of his World Cup vote and banned from football for three years.
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