FIFA – Is this the Pearl Harbour Moment?

Despite their special position as likely beneficiary should the football world decide not to proceed with the Qatar World Cup in 2022, the football powers of the United States have generally stayed above the fray.

Until today that is.

Accusations that the Qataris engaged in the dark arts of corruption are surfacing on a daily basis.

As covered previously on Prost Amerika, there is a surrogate war over the suitability of Qatar as a World Cup host currently being fought by Qatari Mohammad Bin Hammam and FIFA President Sepp Blatter.

Bin Hammam is challenging Blatter for his job as FIFA President.

Blatter usually brushes accusations of FIFA corruption under the carpet, but with the election against Bin Hammam just over a week away, he has been more receptive than usual to prolonging the matter in the world’s media.

Bin Hammam and the Qatari bid are inextricably linked, so anything that harms the legitimacy of one, invariably affects the credibility of the other.

This is why the entry of an old voice, but new player into this drama is highly significant.

Chuck Blazer is the top Unites States Soccer Federation in FIFA. He was one of the 22 voters who decided on the venues for the 2018 and 2002 World Cups.

He was also highly visible in the US Campaign for the 2022 World Cup.

Yesterday FIFA announced the news in a statement:

“On May 24 2011, FIFA executive committee member and CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer reported to FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke possible violations of the FIFA code of ethics allegedly committed by officials.

In particular, the report referred to a special meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), apparently organised jointly by FIFA vice-president Jack A. Warner and FIFA executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam, which took place on May 10 and 11 2011.

This meeting was linked to the upcoming FIFA presidential election.

In view of the facts alleged in this report, which include bribery allegations, FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, in compliance with art. 16 of the FIFA code of ethics, yesterday requested the FIFA ethics committee to open ethics proceedings.”

To summarise, 14 days after a meeting organised by Warner and Bin Hammam, Blazer alerted FIFA’s ethics division.

Jack Warner has been at the centre of corruption insinuation and accusation for a long time. That Bin Hammam was involved in arranging a meeting of the CFU though is eyebrow raising.

Clearly Blazer feels some ethics line has been crossed and FIFA is now investigating Warner, Bin Hamma, and two other officials, two other CFU officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester.

The deputy chairman of FIFA’s ethics committee Petrus Damaseb of Namibia will chair the investigation, as the committee’s head Claudio Sulser is also Swiss and therefore, presumably pre-disposed to find Blatter’s opponent guilty.

Bin Hammam answered back through his own website:

“… if there is even the slightest justice in the world, these allegations will vanish in the wind. This move is little more than a tactic being used by those who have no confidence in their own ability to emerge successfully from the FIFA Presidential election.”

That Bin Hammam is being investigated while his election is taking place is probably the last nail in the coffin of his fading campaign. The hearing will start on May 29th, the election is salted for June 1st.

That is less significant now than the identity of the man holding the hammer, Chuck Blazer.

Former UK Sports Minister Richard Caborn told the BBC:

“The intriguing part of this is the person who has brought the complaints, Chuck Blazer. He obviously has been on the inside track in FIFA for many, many years. He’s very close to Jack Warner. What his motives are, we will have to wait and see.”

For Blazer to turn Warner in at this point is part of the fascination. As Caborn insinuated though, the motives could be deeper than a desire to wrest Warner’s heavy hand of control from CONCACAF.

Nobody can possibly calculate whether a FIFA still led by Sepp Blatter would actually take the World Cup from Qatar if corruption is proven. It is safer to assume though it will never happen under Bin Hammam.

Once his re-election is in the bag, will Blatter abandon the Arab World? Even if he once saw an Asian World Cup as his legacy, would he still desire that if that legacy was tarnished by proof of corruption?

It is even possible he is dangling the carrot of a re-examination of the Qatar award to opponents whose vote he hopes to win in his own campaign.

If that is not the case and the defeat of Bin Hammam will usher in a re-examination of the tactics the Qataris used to win votes, then Blazer’s entry into the war will be see as a pivotal moment, even if it just added to an existing momentum.

After World War 2, the second half of the twentieth century ushered in the second half of what historians now call “the American Century”. That was of course war and this is only football.

It remains to be seen if the Americans are once more to be the main beneficiaries of one American’s decision to leave the sidelines and join Europe in an existing fray against an Asian foe who decided to meddle in America’s backyard.