JOAO HAVELANGE, the former president of football’s world governing body, Fifa, and a senior executive committee member, Ricardo Teixeira, were paid huge bribes by the company to which Fifa awarded the 2002 and 2006 World Cup TV rights, according to a Swiss prosecutor.

In a legal document finally published after lengthy court proceedings in Switzerland, Fifa, under the presidency of Sepp Blatter, Havelange’s successor, was found to have known about the bribes, yet argued it did not need to have the money repaid.

Prosecutions were mounted for alleged embezzlement against Havelange and Teixeira, and “disloyal management” – a breach of its duties – against Fifa, but they were stopped on May 11th 2010, after Havelange and Texeira repaid a small proportion of the 41 million Swiss francs (€34.2m).

The court order documenting the settlement, published by the prosecutor in the Swiss canton of Zug, explains why the prosecution was settled, while the publication of its investigation findings deliver a devastating indictment of Fifa, under both Havelange and Blatter.

Havelange was the Brazilian president of Fifa from 1974 until 1998, when he was succeeded by Blatter, who had been his loyal general-secretary.

Teixeira, Havelange’s son-in-law until his divorce, was a long-serving Fifa executive committee member, and president of Brazil’s football federation, until he stepped down on the grounds of ill-health earlier this year.

Both men were found to have received those massive payments, as “commissions”, stated explicitly to be bribes, by the marketing company International Sports Media and Marketing, known as ISL.

Commercial bribery was not a crime in Switzerland at the time. Havelange, then the president of Fifa, in December 1997 granted ISL Fifa’s exclusive marketing rights, and in May 1998 sold ISL exclusive TV and radio rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.

ISL paid Fifa €166 million for the marketing rights and €1.14bn for the TV rights.

* Guardian Service