Australia's football federation has not called in the federal police to investigate a 2013 inquiry finding that allegedly corrupt FIFA executive Jack Warner stole $500,000 from the FFA.
The funds were meant for a stadium upgrade that Mr Warner had sought from Australian soccer officials in 2010, a year in which the FFA was also seeking Mr Warner's support for Australia's World Cup hosting bid.
A senior FIFA source described as “disgraceful” the revelation that the FFA has not informed the federal police about the allegedly stolen $US462,000. The FFA sent the funds to a Warner-controlled Caribbean bank account in 2010, ostensibly to fund a football stadium upgrade in Trinidad and Tobago.
The concerns about the failure to report the theft have been echoed by the FFA's former corporate affairs manager Bonita Mersiades.
In an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, Ms Mersiades said the reason the FFA was reluctant to report the theft may be because it could further expose the highly risky manner in which it gave “international development” grants to corruption-riddled overseas football bodies at a time when the FFA was also seeking their support for Australia's bid to host the World Cup.
“The FFA should report the alleged theft of its funds by Mr Warner immediately to the federal police given a 2013 inquiry has already found that a fraud has most likely been committed,” Ms Mersiades said.
Over the weekend, the UK paper the Sunday Times exposed an alleged bid buying racket run by former FIFA executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam.
It allegedly involved payments totalling around $US5 million to football officials in return for getting them to support Qatar's ultimately successful world cup bid.
Among the questionable payments allegedly made by Bin Hammam were those wired to then FIFA officials Mr Warner and Reynald Temarii.
Both are former FIFA executives who Australia was also lobbying in a controversial manner in 2010.
Fairfax Media has previously revealed that Mr Temarii had a list of demands for the FFA to meet in return for his vote, including giving Hyundai vehicles to Oceania member federations and providing financial assistance to soccer in the region.
Ms Mersiades told Fairfax Media: “The revelations in the Sunday Times about the way Bin Hammam used hospitality, gifts, perks, and upgrades of stadiums to win bid support has parallels with the manner in which Australia used some of its funds during its bidding campaign. Just look at the FFA funds that landed in Warner's account and which have never been recovered.”
The revelations of the Bin Hammam payments have today sparked intense debate about whether to challenge Qatar's right to host the 2022 World Cup, with the FFA saying it is “keenly interested” to see the results of an ongoing FIFA investigation into the Qatari bid.
But Fairfax Media can reveal that this FIFA investigation has recently also taken evidence from FFA insiders about Australia's dealings with Warner, Temarii and other soccer officials during the 2010 bid.
When the FFA was asked recently by Fairfax Media about why it had not reported to the federal police the allegedly corrupt theft in 2010 of Australian soccer funds by Mr Warner - given the crime was exposed in an inquiry a year ago - a FFA spokesman said it was awaiting “the outcome of… [the ongoing FIFA inquiry] before pursuing the matter”.
In April 2013, a widely publicised formal inquiry by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) integrity committee found that the $US462,200 the FFA deposited in a Caribbean bank account controlled by Mr Warner had most likely been stolen.
The funds were sent to the account after the FFA met with Mr Warner and agreed to donate to the development of a stadium in Trinidad and Tobago.
At the time, the FFA was lobbying Mr Warner to support its bid to host the world cup.
The CONCACAF inquiry said the bank account was controlled by Mr Warner, who appears to have simply pocketed the FFA's funds.
"The funds were paid to CONCACAF by FFA in the form of a check ... to CONCACAF which was deposited into a bank account maintained at Republic National Bank in Trinidad and Tobago, an account in which, earlier that year, Warner had deposited personal reimbursement funds from CONCACAF," the inquiry found.
In 2010, Fairfax Media revealed that the FFA gave a pearl necklace to the wives of top FIFA officials, including Mr Warner, spent tens of thousands of dollars flying a junior Caribbean football team to a match and paid more than $1 million to consultant Peter Hargitay, who claimed privately to be able to deliver Mr Warner's vote to the FFA.
RELATED NEWS
Warner: My day will come
By Sean Douglas (Newsday).
CHAGUANAS West MP and former FIFA vice-president, Jack Warner, yesterday was unfazed by two major developments in the footballing world, both locally and globally, and instead assured that his day will come.
Yesterday Acting Commissioner of Police (CoP) Stephen Williams announced that police have completed their probe into the 2011 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) cash-for-votes controversy and have sent their findings to Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard.
And yesterday internationally, there were also reports of a FIFA probe into claims of impropriety and influence-peddling by Qatar in its successful bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, largely involving Mohammed bin Hammam, a central figure of the CFU controversy.
With allegations of bribes worth $3 million pounds sterling paid to football honchoes to win Qatar’s bid, several of the losing bidders are reported to have called for bidding on the 2022 games to be re-run.
Warner had stepped down as FIFA vice-president and as Concacaf president after the CFU controversy that had occurred during bin Hammam’s leadership challenge to FIFA president, Sepp Blatter.
Warner sent his brief reaction in an email to Newsday, saying, “I have said countless times before and I again reiterate once again today that I have no intention of dignifying the American harassment and demonisation of bin Hammam and Qatar with a reply of any kind to anyone on any matter related to this issue in particular and football in general. And that decision has not changed,” asserted Warner. “Suffice it to say that my day will come.”