The Jamaica Star :: Sport :: FIFA implicated in fraud trial

FIFA President Sepp Blatter ... accused of not properly overseeing marketing deals. - File

ZUG, Switzerland (AP)

A Swiss court ruled yesterday that FIFA failed to properly oversee marketing payments worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a case that revealed how sports officials for years received large sums for arranging lucrative sponsorship and broadcast deals.

The three-judge panel in one of Switzerland's biggest fraud trials said FIFA was aware of the financial difficulties of its now defunct marketing partner ISL/ISMM months before it went bankrupt, but did not carry out checks of the 'special account' it had access to.

World football's governing body was ordered to pay about US$116,000 in costs for lodging the criminal complaint that sparked the fraud inquiry.

FIFA's claim that it was caught unaware by the sudden lack of funds on the account ISL/ISMM used to receive payments from the sale of rights was not credible because it had insight into the account at all times, the judges said.

Declined to comment

FIFA said in an emailed statement that it "has taken note of the verdict" but declined to comment further because it had not yet received the court's reasons for the decision.

The finding was one of a series handed down in a complex decision involving six former executives of ISL/ISMM, FIFA's marketing partner for almost two decades.

The six men were cleared of most of the fraud charges resulting from the company's collapse seven years ago.

But the court in the canton state of Zug found a key figure, Jean-Marie Weber, guilty of embezzlement. Weber, a longtime friend of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, is described in court documents as the strongman behind the ISMM group of companies.

The court said Weber, in 2000, transferred 90,000 Swiss francs (then US$ 52,000) to his personal account for his own purposes and that it considers his refusal to explain the payment as damaging to his case.

Weber's lawyer, Marc Engler, said his client would likely appeal the conviction for embezzlement on procedural grounds.

"Our client doesn't have to prove his innocence by declaring the reason for the payment. He has to be assumed innocent," Engler said.

False documents

The judges also found two other defendants - Hans-Juerg Schmid and Hans-Peter Weber, unrelated to Jean-Marie Weber - guilty of deviously obtaining false documents in multiple cases.

The two men set up sham companies with the sole aim of diverting funds from the ailing ISMM mother company, which collapsed in May 2001 leaving debts estimated at US$300 million.

The ISL/ISMM bankruptcy tore a hole in FIFA's finances and forced the Zurich-based sports body to scramble to find new buyers for television and marketing rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.

The financial crisis at FIFA led some of its senior officials to complain that leading figures including Blatter had failed to properly oversee marketing deals.

During the trial it emerged that ISL/ISMM made payments of 18 million Swiss francs over several years in order to secure lucrative marketing deals.

Among those explicitly named in court documents as recipients of payments is the head of the South American football federation. Nicolas Leoz, a 79-year-old lawyer from Paraguay who has been CONMEBOL president since 1986, was sent two payments in 2000 totalling US$130,000, the documents said. Leoz has not been accused of acting illegally and has previously denied any connection with the marketing company.