The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Again, that is a very unusual payment that was received by the FAI. It was kind of “cash for no questions”—for not seeking to make a complaint against FIFA because of the incident involving Thierry Henry’s handball in the World cup qualifying match against Ireland. It just shows the extraordinary way in which FIFA works that these sorts of irregular payments were made.
Before I move on to look at some of the issues that we have to address, another good example of FIFA’s behaviour has been provided by the recent revelations around the unusual $10 million payment that was made, linked to the South Africa World cup. A request was made for $10 million to support football projects relating to the African diaspora living in the Caribbean. That money was to be paid by the South Africans. They did not want to pay it, so instead FIFA took the money out of the budget that would have gone to South Africa as the host nation for the World cup. It would seem that that money was then paid to officials in the Caribbean, particularly Jack Warner. We now know from the evidence that he has supplied that he used that money personally, and potentially laundered some of it through a supermarket chain in Trinidad.
All of that prompts some questions. Who sanctioned those payments? FIFA said that it did not know anything about them, but it now looks like FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke did know about them. Why were they sanctioned? Clearly, there was absolutely no follow-up at all on how the money was spent—whether it was ever received by the people who were intended to receive it and whether it was ever used to benefit football development projects in the Caribbean, which was allegedly what the money was for, unusual though such a payment was. That is another reason why we should be angry: not only have people have sought to make themselves rich from their positions in football and been greedy in doing so, but they have done it by taking money away from football development projects that should have been there to support some of the poorest people in the world by improving their life chances and access to sporting facilities. It is the poor who have been exploited by FIFA’s greedy officials.
The allegations have run for a number of years now. The allegations that I set out earlier, which were made in front of the Select Committee in 2011, were given pretty short shrift at the time by FIFA, which felt that there were no grounds for further investigation. Under pressure, FIFA then commissioned its own report, led by an American attorney, Michael Garcia, to look at wrongdoing in the World cup bidding process. Members will be well aware of what happened to that report. It was always a very limited report—Michael Garcia had no legal power to subpoena witnesses or evidence and he was very restricted in what he could do. Nevertheless, he was supposedly very critical of the culture of entitlement that existed in the FIFA executive committee, and he argued that it needed wholesale reform. FIFA’s response to that investigation was to seek to suppress the report entirely. Instead, it published a summary, which the author of the report said bore very little relation to the thrust of the arguments or the serious charges that he had made.
One or two other key issues also have to be considered, particularly relating to the World cup in Qatar. Many people were surprised that Qatar was chosen. The country
had no football tradition or football facilities and was bidding on the premise of hosting the World cup tournament in the summer. During the period of the 2014 World cup in Brazil, the average daytime temperature in Qatar was over 40° every day. Many people thought that the bid was clearly not a serious starter. However, there are now other serious concerns. First, there are concerns about the consequences for world sport—including our own football leagues and indeed all European sporting leagues involving winter sports, not just football—of moving the Qatar World cup to the winter. Secondly, there are the real concerns raised about the workers in Qatar who are building the World cup facilities, including many men from Indian and Nepal.
Reports have suggested that more than 1,400 workers have already lost their lives, and the campaign Playfair Qatar has suggested that 4,000 people could lose their lives building not only the football stadiums themselves but all the support facilities needed by Qatar to host the World cup. This is a matter of genuine concern. We know that when London hosted the Olympic games there was incredibly close scrutiny of the rights, including labour rights, and conditions of the people working here. Similar rights and conditions should apply to people working on projects linked to the World cup in Qatar. I was also very disturbed to read reports that, because of the kafala system that operates in Qatar, many workers have very few individual rights. Some Nepalese workers were not even allowed to return home to Nepal to attend the funerals of family members killed in the recent earthquakes. FIFA should be doing a lot more about this as well. We also have a role in asking why more is not being done by FIFA and the international community to insist on higher standards of rights in Qatar.
The World cup bidding process was a flawed process; it was corrupted because of the actions of people involved in it. The best thing for football now would be to order a rerun of the contest to host the tournament, inviting everyone who was part of that contest to rebid for the chance to host the World cup tournaments in 2018 and 2022, and then let us stand by a new process that is open, honest and clear. If that does not happen and FIFA does not do that, I believe we will end up in the position of having to reconsider whether those tournaments are played anyway, because of the charges arising from the current Swiss criminal investigation into that World cup bidding process. It is notable that the Swiss legal authorities are the only people outside the most senior people at FIFA to have seen the Garcia report, and that, having read it, they have opened a criminal investigation into the matters covered by the report.
I will try to be as brief as I can, Mr Streeter, to allow colleagues to participate in the debate, but there are some serious questions about what the UK’s response to this situation should be. The first question is about the Serious Fraud Office. In a debate in the main Chamber in December 2014, I raised the role of the SFO and I have corresponded with SFO officials on a number of occasions about their jurisdiction to act. FIFA clearly has commercial operations linked to the United Kingdom, as it sells broadcast rights to its football matches and tournaments here, so I believe it falls within the general jurisdiction of the SFO to examine matters relating to FIFA.
We know that the SFO can look at matters relating to the England World cup bid. It has been widely reported that a secret dossier was compiled by the Football Association that looked into the World cup bidding process, including the movements of members of FIFA’s executive committee and what other bid teams were doing. It has also been reported in the media that the FA has given the SFO full access to all the documents relating to the World cup bidding process, including those that had not been published before. Will the Minister ask her colleague, the Solicitor General, whether the SFO can now make a statement about exactly what actions it has taken, whether it intends to consider opening its own investigation into FIFA, and whether it can at least confirm that it is fully co-operating with the investigations being led by the FBI and the Swiss authorities? We should at least be clear about the role that the SFO is playing, because it clearly has a role. I believe that it has a role to play in launching its own investigation into FIFA, but it certainly has a role in supporting other investigations that are happening.
We should also continue to apply the pressure on FIFA’s major commercial sponsors—companies such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Visa. Finally, in the last few weeks those sponsors have started to speak up about the need for reform, and suggested that without reform they will withdraw their commercial sponsorship. Many people believe that it was conversations behind closed doors early last week that led to Sepp Blatter reconsidering his position in world football because of that pressure from commercial sponsors. They have a role to play in keeping that pressure on FIFA, as do our FA and the other major football associations around the world, including UEFA. It is the commercial strength of football in those countries, led by the football fans in those countries who pay to buy the merchandise, to subscribe to TV channels to watch football being played and to travel to watch matches live in stadiums—that is important. It is the money of fans in countries such as the UK that puts the money into world football that FIFA benefits from, and it will be the threat of the withdrawal of that funding by nations boycotting FIFA tournaments and by commercial sponsors ending their support that leads to real pressure for change.
Just because Sepp Blatter announced last week his intention to resign the FIFA presidency, we should not believe that there will be an immediate change in FIFA. FIFA has confirmed—it was reported by the BBC this morning—that the timetable set is that the FIFA congress will meet on 16 December to elect a new president. From now until then—for the remainder of this year—Sepp Blatter will be there, pulling the strings and managing the process of “reform”. He will be seeking to ensure that the next president of FIFA is someone who will look after him in the same way that he, for so many years, looked after Havelange, covering his tracks and mistakes and protecting the old guard. That is what we are seeing again now. It is like the dying days of some old Soviet republic, where the old guard are rallying round each other and trying to save the whole operation, and it cannot be allowed to happen. The external pressure that we can exert by debating matters relating to FIFA in this Chamber, and by questioning sponsors and football associations, is essential to keep the pressure on FIFA.
I have a final question for my hon. Friend the Minister. I know that she has already written to the Sports Ministers across the European Union. Will she use her offices to keep the pressure up on the Sports Ministers and Governments of other European nations to question their local football associations? We can work together to ensure that pressure on FIFA from Governments and the media continues until there is real change and reform. I believe that that change should include Sepp Blatter’s immediate removal as president, and an interim team of respected people in world sport should be brought in. Those people do not have to be from football. People from outside can come in to clean out the yard and lead a real reform process and set in place proper elections in future that will involve people who are not tainted by the corruption of the past.
I believe that things will get a lot worse for FIFA before they get better. The FBI and Swiss investigations will go right through the organisation and expose any wrongdoing and incorrect payments. This could involve a large number of people who have been part of the Blatter years. It is time we had a clear-out and the UK has a role and a voice in making sure that happens.