NEW YORK — The FBI’s investigation of bribery and corruption at FIFA includes scrutiny of how soccer’s governing body awarded World Cup hosting rights to Russia and Qatar, a U.S. law enforcement official said on Wednesday.
Russia and Qatar have denied wrongdoing in the conduct of their bids for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, which were not the subject of charges announced by U.S. prosecutors a week ago against FIFA officials that stunned world soccer.
The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the review of the bids would be part of a probe that goes beyond the indictments. Among issues the FBI is examining is the stewardship of FIFA by longtime president Sepp Blatter, who unexpectedly announced on Tuesday he was resigning shortly before it emerged that he, too, was under investigation by U.S. law enforcement.
Authorities said last week that they were investigating a case of $150 million paid in bribes over two decades while Swiss prosecutors announced their own criminal inquiry into the 2018 and 2022 bids.
On Wednesday, the partially blacked out transcript of the November 2013 guilty plea of Charles Blazer, a U.S. citizen and FIFA executive committee member from 1997 to 2013, showed that Blazer and others in FIFA agreed to accept bribes in bidding for the 1998 World Cup in France and 2010 in South Africa.
“Among other things, I agreed with other persons in or around 1992 to facilitate the acceptance of a bribe in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup,” Blazer told a federal judge in New York, according to the transcript.
Blazer went on to say that from 2004 and through 2011 “I and others on the FIFA executive committee agreed to accept bribes in conjunction with the selection of South Africa as the host nation for the 2010 World Cup.”
There was some surprise that the tournament was awarded to Qatar, a small desert country with no real soccer tradition and where daytime summer temperatures can top 104 degrees.
Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah said there was no way Qatar would be stripped of its right to host the World Cup because it had had the best bid.
Russia dismissed concerns it might lose the right to host the cup. “Cooperation with FIFA is going on and, most importantly, Russia is continuing preparations for the 2018 World Cup,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.
U.S. authorities said last week that their announcement was the beginning and not the end of the investigation. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the Department of Justice looked forward to continuing to work with other countries.
The international police organization Interpol put two former top FIFA officials on its wanted list at the request of U.S. authorities. It issued wanted person alerts for Jack Warner, a former president of CONCACAF, which governs soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, and Nicolas Leoz, the ex-head of South America’s soccer federation.
FIFA has denied that another senior official, Secretary General Jerome Valcke, was involved in a $10 million payment approved by the South African Football Association that lies at the heart of the U.S. investigation.
At a news conference in Johannesburg, sports minister Fikile Mbalula confirmed the payment to Warner during South Africa’s successful bid for the 2010 World Cup but denied it was a bribe. Mbalula said the cash was intended for football development in the Caribbean, Warner’s home region.
Valcke said on Wednesday he was not guilty of corrupt practice relating to the payment and he saw no reason to resign.
Blatter announced his decision to step down six days after police raided a hotel in Zurich and arrested several FIFA officials, and four days after he was re-elected to a fifth term as president.
Blatter has not been charged and FIFA did not respond to a request for comment on his being under investigation.
An election to choose a new president will probably not take place until at least December. Blatter, meanwhile, remains in his position.
Among potential candidates to lead FIFA, UEFA chief Michel Platini, a former French international soccer star, is the favorite.
Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, who withdrew from last week’s presidential election after winning 73 votes to Blatter’s 133 in the first round, stopped short of confirming he would run again.
Chung Mong-joon, billionaire scion of South Korea’s Hyundai conglomerate, said he would consider running. Possible candidates also include Domenico Scala, the independent chairman of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee.
Others could include former Brazil international Zico, Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona, Jerome Champagne, a former French diplomat and FIFA deputy secretary general, and German Wolfgang Niersbach, an ex-media chief at FIFA.