FIFA must apologise to football’s whistleblowers

The 'FIFA way' robbed millions worldwide of facilities, funding and opportunities for the best part of a generation and whistleblowers are being proven right

For almost a decade many of us have suspected, or known, that the hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar were awarded after a corrupt process – and bribery.

Without much fanfare earlier this month, no lesser an authority than the US Attorney's office in New York effectively confirmed it in legal paperwork.

In a 70-page indictment, it was stated that associates working for Russia and Qatar paid money to some of the 22 FIFA ExCo members who took part in the 2018 and 2022 votes in early December 2010.

Specifically this document said the notoriously corrupt former vice-president of FIFA, Jack Warner (now banned for life from football), had received $5m to vote for Russia, while Guatemala's Rafael Salguero also had money from Russia.

The allegations stretched to specify that Brazil's Ricardo Teixeira and Paraguay's Nicolas Leoz received bribes to vote for Qatar.

FIFA corruption is no surprise to anyone, but it's the first time it's been stated quite so boldly in black and white in a document authored by a major government investigative authority in relation to 2018 and 2022 bidding.

Russia and Qatar didn't respond at first then claimed they were both entirely innocent, as you would expect.

But the 2018 and 2022 claims highlighted the roles of four particular co-conspirators, one of whom, co-conspirator #3, was listed as 'a close advisor to the president of FIFA and other high-ranking FIFA officials'.

I know this man: I worked with him closely when I had an integral role in Australia's ill-fated bid to host the 2022 World Cup, working at Football Federation Australia.

It was always clear to me that this person, a consultant, was not what he purported to be and that he was potentially working for other bids. I had grave concerns about his strategy and his approach to finding support for Australia. I made these concerns known to the chairman and CEO of the FFA on multiple occasions.

Co-conspirator #3 and I did not see eye-to-eye and, as I described in my book, 'Whatever It Takes – the Inside Story of the FIFA Way', this man was instrumental in ensuring I lost my job.

I subsequently endured years and years of heinous behaviour at the behest of both FIFA and FFA. I had taken a stand on what I saw as unethical behaviour, and paid the price.

I am not alone in suffering such treatment. Others have been scared for the lives and livelihoods after speaking out.

And now is the time for FIFA (and, in my case, FFA) to apologise to football's whistleblowers – of whom there are quite a few.

I am merely one of the public ones that took one for the team, so to speak, in drawing attention to the fact that the 'FIFA way' was the wrong way.

The 'FIFA way' robbed millions of players, fans and others who love football worldwide of facilities, funding and opportunities for the best part of a generation.

I know that testimony and information from other whistleblowers are implicit in the superseding indictment, as is some of my testimony and information.

All of us lost our jobs. Most of us have been unable to get meaningful work since. Even the majority of people who have helped government authorities and who have remained out of the public eye, are denied employment opportunities because once a reference check is done, the interface with football is revealed.

Employers do not turn away because we have done the wrong thing, but because there are very few organisations in the world who want to have a 'whistleblower' – pejoratively viewed as a troublemaker – in their ranks.

In almost every instance, we were hung out to dry by those in power in football, either internationally or in our own countries. After all, when those accused cannot respond with facts or evidence to the contrary, their only resort is to denigrate the individual.

Football whistleblowers have experienced a type of 'social distancing' for a decade, and it's time to draw a line under such treatment and behaviour.

My book recounts a little of what I endured; it's a story common to others also.

It's time that all of us were afforded an apology.

Work continues on Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup final stadium

Not name us and shame us, as FIFA tried to do in the Garcia Report. But name us and thank us. Name us and celebrate us.

If FIFA is serious about being a reformed organisation, if is serious about being branded as FIFA 2.0, if it is genuine about dealing with and understanding its past before forging a new future, and if it wants to gain the trust, respect and confidence of the football world, then FIFA should take a mature, open approach and apologise to all of us.

Gianni Infantino: you say FIFA has changed and the ugly self-serving corruption of the past – as described in the latest legal documents – is gone.

So prove it by apologising to those who helped the 'Beautiful Game' confront its ugly reality.

All we did was dare to speak the truth as we saw it, heard it and understood it.

It's taken a long, long time. For all of us, our lives have changed inexorably and detrimentally in many ways; yet we have done nothing other than live by the value implicit in this from General David Hurley, the Governor-General of Australia. It is a value we should all live by: 'The standard you live by is the standard you walk past.'

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This article first appeared as an oped in the Mail on Sunday (UK) of 12 April 2020.