The woman who took on FIFA

As the dust began to settle on Wednesday’s blockbuster indictments against nine Fifa officials and five corporate executives, one person emerged as the face of a long and complicated criminal investigation.

“The pantheon of world soccer has a new hero,” said one journalist. “Football fans everywhere should salute her,” said another. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch had stood up to Fifa, accusing football’s world governing body of “rampant” corruption spanning more than two decades.

After just a month in the job, Ms Lynch had landed an enormous punch. The Department of Justice would, she vowed, “root out misconduct” and “bring wrongdoers to justice”.

It was an extraordinary statement of intent from a woman whose nomination as attorney general had been frustrated for nearly six months as Republican senators blocked her appointment. And it was the payoff for an investigation she had spearheaded for years.

In was in her role as district attorney that her involvement in the Fifa investigation began. Over the course of five years in Brooklyn, a case against the football officials was pieced together.

“We always knew it was going to be a very large case,” Ms Lynch told the New York Times.

Veins in the network of Fifa corruption alleged by Ms Lynch ran through meeting rooms in the Eastern District and through banking systems across the country, the Department of Justice said. Working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Ms Lynch used those connections to the US to bring the long-awaited indictments.

After years of investigating, she stood up at a press conference in New York and boldly accused Fifa officials of “abusing their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks”. It was an extraordinary blow against an organisation that is alleged to have got away with bribery and corruption for more than two decades.

Meanwhile, local media say South Africa did pay $10m (£6.5m) to a football body led by Jack Warner, a figure at the centre of Fifa corruption allegations.

Danny Jordaan, head of South Africa’s FA, is quoted as confirming that the amount was deducted from a Fifa payment to the country in 2008.

A subsequent letter requested that money to be sent, instead, to the Caribbean Football Union, reports say.

South African officials deny it was a bribe to secure the 2010 World Cup.

But US prosecutors insist South Africa made an illegal payment after the government promised $10m to Mr Warner – then a Fifa vice-president – in exchange for the “Rainbow Nation” becoming the first African country to host the World Cup.

– BBC

Ripples… without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now