“Several members of the executive committee [de la FIFA] received bribes in connection with their votes. For example, the accused Ricardo Teixeira, Nicolás A Leoz and another investigated they were offered and received bribes in exchange for their vote in favor of Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup”. This is how forceful the accusation of the officials of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office (New York) in charge of investigating the FIFA gate caseto which you have had access THE SPANISH NEWSPAPER. This documentation shows the Shadows of the election that was held in 2010 of the Qatari World Cup candidacy, which is immersed in a sporting event marked by controversy over the situation experienced by women and the LGTBi community in this Asian country.
In the case opened in the United States, which is pending trial, there are 17 defendants, including the Catalan Gerard Romy as the former owner of the company Imagina Media Audiovisual, based in Barcelona. However, this partner of Jaume Roures, owner of Mediapro, is indicted for his alleged participation in a conspiracy unrelated to the World.
He is accused of participating in the payment of bribes to high-ranking leaders of the Caribbean Football Union (“CFU”) and federations of the Central American Football Union (“UNCAF”), which operate under the umbrella of the Confederation of North America, Central America and Caribbean Soccer (CONCACAF), to take over the advertising and marketing rights of the World Cup qualifying matches.
Romy allegedly stars in the second wave of bribery that occurred at FIFA, which was uncovered by the US Department of Justice, which opened an investigation into corruption in the world soccer institution after losing the vote to host the 2022 World Cup. The Americans They were favourites, their candidacy being the best valued by FIFA itself, but a dance of votes at the last moment allowed Qatar to win the World Cup.
The FBI investigations, encouraged by Barack Obama himself and the ambassador of the candidacy, Bill Clinton, produced a 70-page report confirming the participation of more than a dozen South American leaders in buying and selling votes. An investigation in which Chuck Blazer, CONCACAF general secretary, who admitted to receiving bribes from Qatar and ratting on FIFA, played a decisive role. Several meetings were held and Blazer participated in them with a hidden microphone to record them. This allowed the US Department of Justice to confirm all the suspicions and open legal proceedings against 16 people and a company, Full Play Group, which is still ongoing. An investigation that adds to the ‘García Report’, of 359 pages, in which the following appear as prominent names:
Nicolás Leoz, Ricardo Teixeira and Julio Grondona
The alleged irregularities point to Ricardo Teixeira, former president of the Brazilian Football Federation and former president of the South American Federation Nicolás Leoz Almirón, Paraguayan nationalized Colombian, who died in 2019; but also to other ex-directors of international football.
Specifically, the so-called ‘Garcia Report‘, which bears the surname of its promoter, United States Attorney Michael Garcia, who was commissioned by FIFA itself, provides the names of others involved in the conspiracy that facilitated the choice of Qatar to host the 2022 World Cupincluding Julio Grondona, the former president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), who died in 2014.
Emails show suspicion that the Amiri Diwanthe Administrative Office of the then Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al Zani, father of the current sheikh of the Persian Gulf country, Tamim bin Hamad, will plan and pay for a displacement to the Asian country of former directors Grondona and Teixeira.
Sandro Rosell
The ‘Garcia’s reportcommissioned by FIFA, dedicates a special section to the intervention of the former president of Barcelona Football Club Sandro Rosell, who in another case he spent two years in pretrial detention until he was acquitted in a trial held at the National Court. Also, recently, a court in Catalonia concluded that the former director of the Catalan club had not committed the crimes against the Public Treasury for which he had been prosecuted. Recordings and notes by commissioner José Manuel Villarejo suggest that this controversial agent may have participated in the genesis of the investigations against Rosell in Spain.
The Qatar Football Association (QFA) hired Rosell as a consultant at the end of 2008. The bid’s executive director, Hassan Al-Thawadi, commissioned him a “study& rdquor; of whether a possible candidacy from this country “would have a chance to win or not”as specified in the dossier promoted by FIFA, which highlights that the Qatari federation promised to pay 2,000 euros for each day it worked for the Doha candidacy.
Hassan Al-Thawadi
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The person in charge of the Qatari candidacy himself knew that Sandro Rosell had a very good relationship with the Brazilian Teixeira. The team of Qatar’s candidacy “built a good relationship”, according to the executive director of the candidacy Hassan Al-Thawadi, “probably because of the relationship… with Sandro Rosell“.
The document highlights that in June 2011 Rosell transferred 2 million euros to an account in the name of the daughter Teixeira who was then 10 years old. Sources from the Qatari candidacy assured that this transfer had nothing to do with the World Cup, but that it was the distribution of the profits from the sale of a home in Brazil. In the same sense, the National Court ruled out in a trial any irregularity in this transfer of money.