‘Blatter, have you ever taken a bribe?’ The beginning of the end for FIFA president

ANDREW Jennings calls it ‘the best day of all’. After a decade on the trail of Sepp Blatter and FIFA corruption, the FBI finally knocked on his door.

ANDREW Jennings calls it “the best day of all”.

After a decade on the trail of Sepp Blatter and FIFA corruption, the FBI finally knocked on his door.

The British journalist, who was once told to “go f**k yourself” by former FIFA vice president Jack Warner, has written books and made documentaries about the sporting body’s controversies. His investigations helped trigger last week’s arrests of FIFA executives - including Warner - busting wide open one of sport’s biggest scandals.

That in turn led to the dramatic resignation overnight of FIFA’s embattled president Sepp Blatter. Speaking to ABC’s Lateline just hours before Blatter quit, Jennings recalled the moment he first laid eyes on Blatter - and challenged him directly.

British journalist Andrew Jennings has been pursuing FIFA for 10 years.

Well, it’s all about technique, really. I’d done years on the International Olympic Committee and the corruption there and I realised: just up the road is FIFA and the smell was drifting my way.

“So I went to one of Sepp Blatter’s press conferences, knowing that ... he doesn’t say anything very interesting, but the nice suited reporters (would always) write it down.

“And I got hold of the radio mike for the Q & A, right at the beginning, grabbed it, stared at him and said, “Herr Blatter, have you ever taken a bribe?”

The question sent shock waves through the FIFA hierarchy. Not just because Jennings had referred to the all-powerful football boss as “Herr Blatter’ instead of “President”, but because it sent a signal to those who held FIFA secrets that he was a willing ear if they wanted to speak out.

“That was deliberate because, you see, either side of the room were all these robotic FIFA employees: the women fed up with being felt up, the men worrying about their bonuses. These were the people with the (computer) servers, the filing cabinets. They’d got the documents and I needed to get them to trust me.”

It didn’t take long before the information began to flow Jennings’ way. And from then on it was only a matter of time.

“That got me in to FIFA corruption.”

Andrew Jennings confronts former FIFA vice president Jack Warner.

Jennings is the author of ‘Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA-Organised Crime Family’. He likens FIFA to the Mafia characters he’s previously investigated in his career.

“Basically, what you’ve got coming down from the top is the licence to steal, which all capo bosses have to give, all gang bosses have to give their lieutenants,” he said.

“And what you’ve got coming down is unaudited million-dollar development grants, no auditors so the guys can just steal - they were the voters, by the way, last Friday - and also a whole fistful of World Cup tickets which come under the table and are then sold into the black market.”

Jennings’ work caught the attention of the FBI, which sent “serious-looking Americans with broad shoulders who had been in the Marines” to visit him at his home in London in 2009.

“And that’s been the best day of all, because then I knew they were serious professionals and understanding of the structures of organised crime and they wanted to talk about FIFA’s structures,” he told Lateline.

“So I knew back in 2009 it was going to start to roll. And I initially described to them how FIFA worked: who the personalities were, all the senior people. We developed from there.”

Last night, Jennings predicted Blatter was “dead meat.”

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“I mean, Blatter has been a micromanager since 1976. And, in fact, if you look at the criminal indictment there are things coming up that he had to know about. But he is a dead man walking.”

But his criticism doesn’t stop with Blatter. Jennings also has FFA in his sights, using the interview to call on Frank Lowy to resign, saying Australia “has been shafted”.

“He’s led Australian football into disaster,” Jenning said.

Sepp Blatter resigned today at a hastily arranged press conference.

He alleged FIFA “looked the other way” when bribes were being paid to FIFA executives, including $500,000, which is alleged to have been misappropriated by Warner.

“I’m not saying Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley said, ‘Hey, how do we bribe Warner?’ I’m not saying that happened. But a brilliant businessman like Frank Lowy ... has he never heard of auditors?”

For Blatter though the problems could only be beginning. He has vowed to stay on as FIFA head until new elections in December but ABC News (US) reports this morning he is being investigated by the FBI and US prosecutors as part of the same probe that led to his colleagues’ arrests last week.

Originally published as ‘Blatter, have you ever taken a bribe?’ The beginning of the end for FIFA president