Triesman: FIFA four wanted bribes to back bid

1/2
Henry Swarbrick11 April 2012

Lord Triesman today accused four FIFA members, including vice-president Jack Warner, of improper behaviour in the bidding process for the 2018 World Cup.

Triesman made claims about Warner, Nicolas Leoz, Ricardo Teixeira and Worawi Makudi and admitted the bid team should have reported them immediately.

Triesman, who resigned from his role as Chairman of both the Football Association and England's 2018 World Cup campaign after taped conversations about the bid were reported in a Sunday newspaper, claimed that Warner had asked for funds to be diverted into his personal account so he could build a football school in Trinidad.

Speaking under parliamentary privilege, Triesman also revealed how Paraguay's FIFA member Leoz asked for a knighthood, Brazil's Teixeira asked "what have you got for me" and Thailand's Makudi wanted to be given the television rights to a friendly between his country and England.

Speaking before a Select Comittee for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Triesman said: "We (Triesman and Dave Richards) were invited by Jack Warner to a meeting and he said that he had something he wanted to talk to us about and put to us.

"It didn't take long for him to get to the point. He said that he was concerned that after all his years in Trinidad and Tobago, he had nothing he could regard as his legacy. What he had in mind was some kind of school.

"As he described it, Sir Dave nodded to me and I understood exactly what the nod meant. And I said immediately that in my mind the proposition was out of the question. And Sir Dave said 'You must be joking Jack, you are talking about half a million pounds!' Jack nodded at that and then said that the funds would be channelled through him and he could guarentee that they would be appropriate.

"Some weeks later he got in touch with me after the Haiti earthquake. He said it would lift the people's spirits if they could see the World Cup and somebody needed to make a donation to buy the television rights so large TV screens could be lifted. He believed that if he had a sum of about half a million pounds sent to him he could secure the rights. I then said that was totally out of the question."

Triesman added that he would undertake to provide his evidence to any FIFA inquiry.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter today said he would launch an investigation if any evidence of wrong doing by ex-committee members is revealed and that cleaning up FIFA was his "credo".

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in