Blatter comes under heavy fire

FIFA, world football's governing body, has lost almost $500 million during the four-year reign of Sepp Blatter because of financial mismanagement, cronyism and widespread corruption, according to a confidential report by Michel Zen-Ruffinen, the organisation's general secretary.

In the 21-page report, details of which appeared in a Swiss newspaper yesterday, Zen-Ruffinen alleges the president used FIFA funds to ensure continued support and that contracts worth millions of pounds were awarded to his backers. Zen-Ruffinen, who presented his report to FIFA's executive committee on Friday, says Blatter runs the organisation like a dictator, paying out millions of pounds to those closest to him.

But yesterday Blatter denied the charges and said the report was full of errors. "I have made mistakes now and then but there have been no criminal actions," he said. "There are so many factual mistakes in his report. It is simply not serious."

Under the heading "breaches of competence by the president", Zen-Ruffinen alleges Blatter wrote off $9.75 million due to FIFA from CONCACAF - the confederation of North and Central America and the Caribbean - without good reason.

The report also claims that the Goal project, set up by Blatter to promote football around the world, is a vehicle for the president to buy support by making payments to FIFA's 204 national associations. Millions of dollars have been spent on coaching programmes and the construction of facilities.

"I worked out the Goal project . . . for my 1998 election campaign. The executive committee fought it at first, then everyone applauded it, and now it is used even by Issa Hayatou (Blatter's rival for president) for his own election programme," Blatter responded.

Pressed by the newspaper on whether the project was used to buy votes, he argued that the allocation of funds was dealt with by a commission: "I have nothing to do with it." An entire section of the 21-page report is devoted to Jack Warner, the CONCACAF president and a leading Blatter supporter.

Zen-Ruffinen says: "The president has constantly taken decisions which are favourable to the economic interests of Jack Warner and some of his family members and are contrary to the financial interests of FIFA."

Warner, who is from Trinidad and Tobago, bought the rights to broadcast the 1990, 1994 and 1998 World Cups in the Caribbean for $1.

Zen-Ruffinen's document also addresses for the first time the true level of losses incurred by FIFA through the collapse of ISL, its marketing partner. Blatter claims that the figure is $31.9 million but Zen-Ruffinen says the true amount is $115.6 million.

Under the heading "corruption" Zen-Ruffinen alleges that Blatter paid the expenses of Viacheslav Koloskov, president of the Russian federation, for two years, claiming he was a member of the executive committee. But Blatter countered: "Koloskov was no longer in an elected office but he was still active in an official function in Russia, so I decided to pay him $50,000."

One of the most serious allegations against Blatter is that he resorted to corruption to try to silence the Somali official Farah Addo, who recently claimed he had been offered money to vote for Blatter in the 1998 elections.

The document claims that Blatter paid a former FIFA referee, Lucien Bouchardeau of Niger, for information about Addo. "The president . . . handed out to him in front of two FIFA employees a cheque of $25,000 mentioning that Bouchardeau would receive an additional $25,000 if the information he provided would suit the purpose of the president."

Blatter admitted giving Bouchardeau money but said it came from his own pocket. "Because of Addo, Bouchardeau has been left out in the cold in Africa. He said to me with tears in his eyes that he was a poor devil and had nothing left. So I gave him $25,000 of my own money," he said. "I'm too good a person."