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Briefcases stacked with dollars: How South Africa rigged the 2010 World Cup bid
This is the story told about South Africa’s World Cup 2010 bid in the indictment served on 14 Fifa officials in a US court this week.
By May 2004, Jack Warner knew exactly which country he was going to back to host the 2010 World Cup.
Warner, the head of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football or CONCACAF, had been a FIFA vice president since 1997 and had served on its executive committee since 1983.
During this time, he had turned the choosing of World Cup hosts into a lucrative enterprise that paid him handsome bribes and kickbacks in exchange for his influence over voting in FIFA elections and for host countries.
He – and several co-conspirators – cast their vote for South Africa. They would shortly be US$10 million richer thanks to an elaborate scheme that involved fiddling with Fifa finances at the expense of the South African taxpayer.
Warner is among 14 defendants on a US indictment which lays bare how football was turned into a personal money-machine for powerful figures in Fifa.
So bad did Warner’s reputation become that he read more
