ZURICH, Nov 30, (Agencies): Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International has called on FIFA to postpone the race to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups following fresh media allegations of corruption.
The call from the campaign group came just before the executive committee of world football’s governing body is due on Thursday to designate the two host nations, in front of a high-powered gathering of world leaders and stars.
The selection of the 2018 and 2022 hosts “must be postponed until full light is shed on the allegations published in the press”, Transparency International Switzerland said in a statement Monday.
“These have brought such discredit to the decision-making processes at FIFA that a decision in the current circumstances would only fuel the controversy,” it added.
The Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported that Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil, African football chief Issa Hayatou and his South American counterpart Nicolas Leoz were tied to a secret list of payments from bankrupt FIFA marketing partner ISMM/ISL over a decade ago.
An investigation by BBC current-affairs programme Panoroma, broadcast late Monday, accused the same three executives.

Panorama also accused a fourth FIFA executive committee member, Trinidad’s Jack Warner, of attempting to sell World Cup tickets on the black market.
The programme said it had obtained a confidential document from International Sports and Leisure (ISL), which detailed 175 payments totalling 100 million dollars made between 1989 and 1999.
Many of the payments were funnelled to front companies set up in Liechtenstein, Panorama alleged, with much of the cash eventually being paid to a “handful” of FIFA officials.
The ISMM/ISL firm collapsed in 2001 in a controversy over alleged kickbacks for TV rights contracts, prompting a FIFA criminal complaint that was later dropped.
A Swiss court handed down fines on three ISMM/ISL executives in 2008 for embezzlement or accounting offences.
Leoz was already listed as a recipient of suspect payments from the marketing firm, alongside several companies based in offshore havens, in evidence presented by the prosecutor in the Swiss canton of Zug in 2005.
Transparency said that even if those allegations were currently not proven, they needed to be investigated by an independent fact-finding body rather than FIFA’s ethics committee.
The race suffered embarrassment in October when The Sunday Times in London reported alleged misdealing in bidding for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

That report prompted the FIFA ethics body to suspend two other members of the 24-strong executive committee, Oceania football chief Reynald Temarii and Nigeria’s Amos Adamu.
There were also signs that the secret ballot on Thursday could slip into confusion as the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) sought the right to vote by replacing Temarii.
FIFA had suggested it would run the ballot with 22 of the 24 committee members, excluding Temarii and Adamu. But England 2018 bid chief executive Andy Anson was anticipating there would be 23.
“I think our colleagues in the OFC are confident they’ll be voting this week,” Anson told journalists.
FIFA wants Temarii to give up any appeal against his one-year suspension for misconduct, in return for another OFC official getting a vote on Thursday, Temarii’s lawyer Geraldine Lesieur told AFP.
But Temarii will only decide after receiving a fuller ruling in his case and for now, “we are in an impasse”, she said.
FIFA chief Sepp Blatter has promised that a “new FIFA” will choose the hosts, while acknowledging the need to examine more change afterwards to adapt to the growing economic stakes in football.
England, Russia and joint bids by Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium are in the running to host the 2018 World Cup.

Australia, the United States, Japan, Qatar and South Korea are bidding for 2022.
Meanwhile, Olympics chiefs vowed to probe one of their own officials caught up in the allegations.
As prime ministers and royalty headed for the Swiss city of Zurich ahead of Thursday’s two announcements, fresh media allegations even prompted a call for football’s world governing body to postpone the decision.
The International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday that it would examine any evidence of corruption.
“The IOC has taken note of the allegations made by BBC Panorama and will ask the programme makers to pass on any evidence they may have to the appropriate authorities,” the Swiss-based body said in a statement.

“The IOC has a zero tolerance against corruption and will refer the matter to the IOC Ethics Commission,” it added, without specifically naming Hayatou.
But FIFA insisted on Tuesday that the ISMM/ISL “investigation and case are definitely closed,” without convictions of FIFA officials.
Leaders of England 2018 bid fear the BBC documentary would undermine their chances.
Trying to limit the damage, British Prime Minister David Cameron was on Tuesday lobbying Warner, head of the North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) region, regarded as lynchpin in the vote.
“I’ve only got one focus here and that’s trying to bring the World Cup home for England,” Cameron told the BBC.

England officials will also have support from heir to the throne Prince William, due to meet FIFA delegates on Wednesday, and English football icon David Beckham.
Other nations were also engaging on a lobbying offensive in Zurich’s plush hotels.
Russia is also vying for the 2018 tournament, but it faces strong competition from a joint Spain-Portugal bid which has been at the centre of allegations of collusion with 2022 hopefuls Qatar.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has admitted that with hindsight the decision to make a joint decision may have been a mistake.
Eight of the nine nations vying for the two World Cups have representatives on the executive committee that will vote for the hosts in secret ballots on Thursday. Australia is the only potential host without a vote.

Russia’s sports minister Vitaly Mutko criticised alliances in the race to host football’s World Cup in 2018, inisisting that the Russian bid had sold itself on its merits.
“We do not support the idea of any alliance or collusion,” Mutko told journalists. “We would certainly like these alliances and collusions not to happen,” he added, after being questioned about an alleged deal between Spain-Portugal’s bid for 2018 and 2022 candidate Qatar to support each other in voting.
Mutko is also a member of the executive committee of world football’s governing body that will choose the hosts of sports biggest crowd puller.
Mutko presented the bid by Russia, which has never hosted the top European or world football tournaments before, as an opportunity to expand the game in new territory straddling Europe and Asia.
“Our bid is perfectly within the strategy of FIFA. FIFA is not only a football organisation, it develops countries through football.”

“Russia would have a huge legacy from hosting the World Cup in 2018 should this right be granted to us,” added the sports minister.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin does not intend to visit Zurich to support his country’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup ahead of Thursday’s vote, his spokesman revealed.
“In the prime minister’s agenda on December 2 there are events planned in Kaliningrad where questions of public health will be discussed,” said Dmitri Peskov in comments reported by the website Gazeta.ru.
Peskov did not rule out Putin’s presence at the vote, but he could not be contacted in the evening.
Moutko said that Russia’s 30-man delegation in Zurich would be led by deputy prime minister Igor Chouvalov, according to the Itar-Tass agency.
In 2007, as president, Putin was congratulated for playing a key role in the decision to award the 2014 Winter Olympics to the Russian city of Sotchi, after personally supporting the city’s candidacy in Guatemala.

However, according to an unnamed government official cited by Gazeta.ru, there was no need for Putin to make the trip to Switzerland.
“There was a significant number of members of the International Olympic Committee in Guatemala who were undecided (in 2007),” said the official.
“The FIFA members are less numerous and those that have to vote have already made their decisions. There’s no point in convincing them.
“We also have to be prudent so as not to risk being suspected of putting pressure on FIFA members.”
Australia’s bid team were unperturbed on Tuesday by a report which said they had the lowest revenue potential of all five countries campaigning to host the 2022 World Cup.
Australia were given an overall 68 percent rating by management consultants McKinsey who were commissioned by FIFA to analyse each bid across five key revenue streams: sponsorship, ticketing, hospitality, licensing and media rights.

This compared to 100 per cent evaluation for the United States, followed by Japan with 73 percent, South Korea 71 percent, Qatar 70 percent. “McKinsey are not voting,” said Australian bid head Frank Lowy. “They are not the decisive factor.”
“We have a study we have produced and it does paint a different picture. It would be very profitable for FIFA to award the World Cup to Australia.
“If you look at the growth of Asia, Japan, China, India in the last 10 years, what will happen in the next 10 years is unbelievably great in numbers of people, wealth creation, spendable dollars.
“Those things are overwhelming, whatever McKinsey might say.”
Lowy said Thursday’s vote would not be swung by one individual factor, whether that was the technical or financial strength of the bids, the political lobbying or Wednesday’s presentations to FIFA’s executive committee.

“There are many deciding factors, but I think we have a credible, good, top bid, very seriously done,” he said.
“When you build a house, do you say that the bricks are more important than the roof or the foundation is more important than the bricks? Our presentation is important but it is not the only factor.
Lowy was speaking shortly after a meeting with FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
“It does make an impression,” he said of the meeting. “He doesn’t sit and there and just listen, he asks questions, he wants to be informed.
“He wants to be sure the award will be given to the best contender. It’s a very polite discussion but you have to watch for the signs.”

African soccer president Hayatou denied that he had taken a bribe, as alleged by a British television documentary on supposed corruption within FIFA, and said that his conscience was clear.
In a television interview with Reuters, Hayatou said the BBC programme Panorama had made a false accusation that a payment he received from FIFA’s former marketing partner ISL was a bribe. Panorama also implicated two other FIFA executive committee members in receiving alleged corrupt payments from ISL.
Hayatou said the payment he received was for 25,000 Swiss francs ($25,040) and that it had been a legitimate and approved payment for the African Football Confederation’s (CAF’s) 40th anniversary celebrations in Egypt.
“Panorama wanted to make people believe that we were corrupt,” he said. “What they showed was from 16 years ago. Why did they not show this before?
“The money was addressed for CAF. The executive committee knew of it. I asked them if I should accept and they said yes.”

Hayatou is in Zurich to vote on the FIFA executive committee for the host nation for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
“Personally, I know no-one can influence me,” he said. “I will vote with a clear conscience.”
Hayatou said he could not speak for his two colleagues Nicolas Leoz of the South American Confederation and Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil who were also named in the Panorama programme broadcast on Monday.
“But I have no reason to think they are corrupt,” he said.
Hayatou said he would discuss with his lawyers whether he should sue the BBC but that was a decision for later.
“These accusations have dishonoured me,” he said. “I would not have stayed at the head of CAF for so long if I was corrupt.”
Hayatou added that he had received countless phone calls from colleagues expressing their support since the Panorama programme was broadcast. “People know me,” he said.