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[bleating]
[children shouting]
[whistle blows]
[man] Football is the most popular cultural phenomena in the world.
Nothing comes close.
Nothing attracts audiences on the scale,
nothing ignites the emotions that football does.
[cheering]
[dramatic organ music]
No country owns football.
This is a common, collective, human piece of cultural capital.
This is the place that we celebrate our collective humanity
more intensely and on a larger scale than anything.
The World Cup is simply the most unifying universal thing that humanity does.
And it really matters that the people who run it
actually represent a collective humanity.
And if it is full of self-serving and corrupt individuals,
and self-serving and malign states, there is a problem.
2018 FIFA World Cup will be organised in Russia.
[cheering]
[groaning]
The winner to organise the 2022 FIFA World Cup
is Qatar.
FIFA has been rocked by more allegations of corruption and fraud.
The organisation that oversees professional soccer around the world
may be facing the biggest scandal in its history.
[newsreader] Nine top officials accused of taking $150 million
in bribes and kickbacks.
Several top officials of soccer's world governing body were arrested.
They corrupted the business of worldwide soccer
to serve their interests and to enrich themselves.
[newsreader] Five of FIFA's seven vice presidents
have asked Blatter to step down, but he has refused to do so.
For what? Next question.
[man] Sports have always been a way
in which the dominant ideologies of the day did battle with each other.
Right now, the dominant ideologies are democracy and autocracy.
And somewhere in that giant divide between the grassroots of something
and how it is packaged and sold around the world
lies all the answers we're looking for.
Does this work? It works. We haven't sound-tested. Good morning.
Well, how do you get inside monolithic organisations
that don't want you to know what they're doing,
are frightened what you would find out,
how do you get in?
Well, here's how I acquired a huge collection
of FIFA's most carefully guarded confidential documents.
[clears throat] Let's find the microphones. Yeah? OK?
It's taken 15 years to get from my first cautious investigation
through to where we are now, with prison doors slamming all over the world.
In 2002, I went to one of President Blatter's press conferences in Zurich.
I thought, "It's time to stir things up a bit."
I grabbed the roving hand mic and said,
"Herr Blatter, have you ever taken a bribe?"
Oh! Absolute pandemonium. Nobody ever asked that question.
[in German] No. Not like that. Not me. Certainly not me.
[Jennings] Next day in the London newspapers
was the headline, "Blatter Denies Taking Bribes".
I'd got bribes onto the media agenda.
I'm coming for you, Herr Blatter. I know you're a crook.
Because his reputation is appalling.
But he has not to validate me.
He has not to validate me.
[man] Andrew had established quite a reputation
as a passionate, obsessed
and relentless hard-hitting investigative reporter.
[Jennings] The robbers on that team aren't nice people.
They're people who are quite prepared to put both barrels of a sawn-off through you
if you stand between them and the prize.
He started investigating organised crime, which is where he'd sort of made his name.
On its way to Britain was then the biggest ever load of cocaine, 400 kilos,
a fantastic amount of cocaine.
And it was only later that he got interested
and moved his attention to the world of international sport.
Are you the right person to lead the Olympic movement?
[Oliver] And then he had moved on to FIFA.
He was constantly telling stories, constantly talking about FIFA.
If you didn't want to know about FIFA,
you shouldn't be sitting anywhere near Andrew Jennings.
I then started looking at the definitions of organised crime
as written by police officers, by criminologists,
and I realised that…
Sepp Blatter's tight ruling group tick all the boxes.
The loyalty comes up from the 209 national associations,
and the rewards come down in millions and millions of dollars.
And then I thought, "Yeah, but where did it start? Where does it come from?"
Let's wind back. It's 1974. The gangsters arrive.
When you hear about the family of football,
it's actually the Havelange family.
João Havelange, for all his faults, was an extraordinary innovator,
a man who saw the future.
He enters the world of football in the mid-1950s
when he becomes president of the Brazilian Football Federation,
and it is under Havelange that Brazil wins its first World Cup in 1958.
At some point in the early 1970s,
João Havelange decides to run to be the president of FIFA.
[announcer] The new president of FIFA is Mr de Havelange.
[applause]
And this happens just at the moment when television broadcasting rights
start to bring vast fortunes into FIFA's coffer.
[in French] You can't ignore what television represents in the modern world
in the world of communications.
Before it was only seen by those who were in the stadium
or those who had a small radio, but now everything has changed.
[man] TV sets came to every little village in the Colombian mountains,
the desert of Sahara.
The big consumer good industry realised there was a big potential
in reaching audiences globally through their banners around the stadium,
through their logos on the shirts and shoes.
FIFA was in a very favourable position because they had monopoly rights
over their very attractive live TV product.
[Jennings] You may have heard of FIFA,
but you probably haven't heard of the company
whose activities threaten to bring down
some of the most powerful men in world football.
It's called International Sports and Leisure, or ISL.
[Szymanski] FIFA made the decision
to manage the marketing of the rights in-house.
They decided to create their own internal organisation called ISL.
[Goldblatt] ISL, International Sport and Leisure,
was a creation of João Havelange and his ally Horst Dassler.
Horst Dassler made Adidas the most successful sportswear company
because he understood the power of advertising and marketing.
And he also pioneered the micropolitics of sport and sponsorship.
He created, in effect, a sports intelligence unit inside Adidas,
masses of information on every important figure
in the world of global and national sports bureaucracies.
And that, of course, became the instrument
for cutting the kind of deals that you needed to do
to get the Adidas stripes on the team's boots.
[Havelange, in French] When I took over, I went to see Mr Horst Dassler.
We concluded a very important contract for FIFA
which was the basic element
for the development of soccer in the world.
When you go to FIFA headquarters in Zurich,
it's really the house that Adidas built,
and the linking between FIFA and Adidas is massive.
The model that they chose was that ISL buys the media rights
for the World Cup from FIFA for a set fee,
FIFA's backed that guarantee,
and then ISL goes off and sells the rights in many packages around the world
and they can make a profit.
[Oliver] Now, in order to ensure that ISL stayed the intermediary,
secret payments, kickbacks, were given to senior officials at FIFA.
[interviewer] Was it Horst Dassler's ambition to control the president of FIFA?
Whether it's his ambition, I think it is certainly his desire,
and has always been his desire since I've known him,
to have a very strong influence
on the president and all the senior people of FIFA.
[interviewer] A desire to influence, isn't that diplomatic language in your world
for control and manipulate?
Probably.
[African music and singing]
[player shouts]
[man, in German] Arrival of FIFA instructors
at the municipal youth centre,
including the Swiss Werner Hersi, Anton Bucheli and Sepp Blatter.
[in Walser German] The development of the foot must have a repetitive,
even a permanent character, to achieve efficient results.
[Goldblatt] Sepp Blatter is brought into FIFA first as a technical advisor.
Havelange recognises something in Blatter.
And Havelange sends him out to Adidas to work with Horst Dassler for a few years
and to learn the dark arts of politics in the world of international sport.
And then he's ready, in the early 1980s, to take over as general secretary.
And at that point, Blatter is both trusty, unquestioning servant
and also the magician's apprentice.
Sepp Blatter is an extraordinary character.
On the one hand, you know, he's the hard-bitten, no-nonsense,
realpolitik of FIFA,
who knows where all the bodies are buried and knows how power works.
But there's another side to Blatter.
In his youth, he was the wedding singer. He liked to croon.
Now, he earned, paid his way through university
with a mixture of singing and waiting tables.
And he modelled himself, by his own admission, on Eddie Constantine…
♪ I used to be like all those other guys… ♪
[Goldblatt] …who was an American B-movie actor
playing a kind of 99-cent-shop James Bond.
- Everyone has his own gimmick, you know? - I understand.
- Whisky? - Yeah, but make it a big one.
[Goldblatt] That's kind of Blatter's model.
♪ Someday you'll feel like you're the king of the hill ♪
Mr Blatter, so nice to meet you after feeling you for so many years.
- Nice to have you here. - Thank you very much.
Funny, I met you just in the men's room a minute ago.
- [laughter] - You're full, I guess. Good.
Blatter loved the stage more than everything else.
It was for him very important.
The worst for him is if they don't speak about him.
He had two visions: to strengthen his personal power in FIFA
and to develop the game.
[applause]
[Goldblatt] Always the way with autocrats is when you leave,
how do you secure your legacy?
How do you make sure the next folks in
don't go looking too deeply into what's been happening in the past?
[in French] For the presidency of FIFA,
I am going to recommend Mr Joseph Sepp Blatter,
to whom I give the floor.
FIFA has a very pyramid-like structure. At the top of it is the president.
There is six regional vice presidents
from the six regions around the world.
Beyond that, there is what was called an executive committee
who were drawn from each of those regions.
But when it came to the election for the president,
it was all of the member associations who got a vote.
Like in the United Nations, it's one country, one vote.
[Goldblatt] This is very useful to know if you're in the business of buying votes.
It's very difficult to buy votes from people who are already really wealthy.
But many of those countries are extremely small and poor and easily influenced,
and that's where you start.
[Togoni] Blatter, he had not the personal power as much as Havelange,
and he didn't have the respect of all.
All of us, not one or two, all of us must try very hard
to restore the respect for football and for the FIFA family.
[Togoni] Blatter hated to have a counter-candidate.
[in Swedish] What is the difference between you and Blatter?
[in Swedish] He stands for continuity,
which means dictatorial behaviour
and disregard for democratic rules.
[Goldblatt] If you've already been doing well
out of the system of patronage and clientelism
that has been established under Havelange
and you want that to carry on, stick with the devil you know.
Blatter's your man.
And that's basically, the same coalition that voted Havelange into power
is held together,
It is Africa, it's Latin America, and the new kids on the block, Concacaf.
[Togoni] Chuck was probably the smartest guy
who was sitting in the executive committee.
[Oliver] Chuck Blazer was the man running football in North America,
together with his friend, Jack Warner,
the man running football in Trinidad and Tobago.
[Togoni] They played a very perfect paso doble.
Jack Warner was the front man,
and Chuck Blazer was the man who introduced the deals.
[man] Blazer, of course, would ensure, whatever he was involved in,
there was a commission for himself.
He earned himself the nickname within Concacaf as Mr 10%.
[Goldblatt] Blazer and Jack Warner, they're shameless.
They are taking money on the side on every single media deal.
Chuck Blazer has got a duplex in Trump Tower.
But wait. He's not just got one duplex.
He's got two cats. The cats can't live with them. They need a duplex.
[cat meows]
He also has a phenomenal taste for all the very finest restaurants
that New York City can supply.
Both of them have got a Concacaf credit card
and they are spending it on whatever they damn well want.
[Togoni] And then Bin Hammam is an entrepreneur in Qatar.
He came to FIFA via Asia. He was president of Asia.
[Goldblatt] Bin Hammam's a billionaire.
He's interested in power. He's not interested in money.
[Togoni] Bin Hammam supported Blatter for his election in 1998.
Blatter promised Bin Hammam probably to become his successor.
He promised this to many people.
[man] It was crucial to get 20 votes to move from Johansson to Blatter.
Would Hammam procure votes for Blatter?
Part of the procurement was $50,000 per vote.
[interviewer, in German] What was in the envelopes which the lady handed out?
[in German] That's rubbish. It's all a load of nonsense.
If it's all nonsense, then why do you react so strongly to it?
We see a change in FIFA during the '90s.
Really, I think, that's a function of two things:
the growing sums of money that are coming into the game,
and, two, the growing realisation that something's not quite right here.
And it's only then that people start to say,
"Well, where is all this money going?"
[interviewer] You absolutely reject allegations,
whether they are connected to the Blatter campaign arranging bribes,
you absolutely reject?
Absolutely, absolutely.
Mr Blatter is not… "competable".
I mean, nobody can compete with him.
[announcer, in French] Mr Joseph Blatter: 111.
- [applause] - Mr Lennart Johansson: 80.
[Blatter, in French] Thank you for having elected me as the president of FIFA.
[Jennings] That, my friends, is soccer democracy.
Voters from 18 African nations had been bribed to support Blatter.
Those votes were enough to defeat Lennart Johansson from Sweden.
The election of Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA was fraudulent.
He is not the legitimate president of world soccer.
[Yallop] I don't know what deal was done, but I would say to you
just watch for the next couple of years
for a meaningless FIFA tournament to be staged in Qatar.
[Blatter] They would have you believe that I sit in my office with a sinister grin,
gently stroking the chin of an expensive white Persian cat
as my terrible sidekick.
But that is not what we are. That's not FIFA. That's not me.
I have dedicated my life for the good of football around the world
in the belief that football has the power to build a better future.
One is very near vomit sometimes when Blatter starts talking about,
"My mission to the world is…"
His mission to the world is one thing: stay in power.
He resembles the lowest lowlife, pond life,
of particularly American politics as we get to see more of it,
that you get elected today,
and tomorrow you start raising money for the next election.
You're out there doing whatever has to be done
because you don't care about ideology.
Democrat, socialist, trade union, Nazi, they just wanna stay in power.
Blatter does not like being investigated.
What are your expenses? What are your bonuses?
How much do you earn?
[interviewer] Why don't we know your salary?
But why you should… I don't know your salary.
But you're an elected official. I'm an employee. You're elected.
[Jennings] And it's a reporter's job to say, "I'm asking you again:
how much does FIFA pay you?"
Andrew Jennings would stand up and say, "Have you taken a bribe?
Where is this money? Where are these documents?"
That was absolutely his genius,
because he knows that corrupt men of power always have people in their organisations
who they have annoyed, upset, humiliated,
and it is those people to whom he was speaking.
It's like putting up a great big sign, "You wanna get back at the boss?
You wanna clear out the stables?
I'm the man to send the documents to."
[Jennings] You remember your mother told you,
"If you do bad things, you will get caught one day."
In the spring of last year, ISL declared bankruptcy
solely through mismanagement of other contracts.
[Blatter] So I would like to give you an update
of the collapse of our marketing partner, ISL.
[Oliver] It went bankrupt because Horst Dassler died.
And under Horst Dassler, it was a very well-managed operation,
whether it was corrupt or not.
Under the subsequent management, they basically ran it into the ground,
paying too much for rights they shouldn't have been buying
rather than concentrating on the really good things they already had.
This situation is certainly one of the biggest challenges
in the history of the 97 years of FIFA.
[Goldblatt] So when ISL goes bankrupt, an awful lot of documentation
falls into the possession of the Swiss court and judicial system.
The most important document that the Swiss authorities get hold of,
it's just the list of names and numbers,
the names of people who were getting a kickback,
the amount of money that they're getting.
[Jennings] Folks have been named.
Don't get excited. This is transparency Swiss and FIFA style.
After secret negotiations,
the Swiss federal court has agreed that the names can be kept secret.
So it was clear by then that there had been bribes paid.
That was a starting point.
The second question became: who had been bribed?
The television Andrew worked in,
there was a strong tradition of what we call the doorstep,
which is, effectively, if they won't speak, if they won't answer questions,
you go and knock on their door
or find them in the street and ask them a question.
What we came up with was, well, OK, let's make the film
about Andrew trying to find out who got the bribes.
Andrew had a reputation for being somewhat aggressive in his approach to people.
So the first Panorama we made,
what our editor wanted was a slightly more questioning approach.
And he said, "Have you ever seen that TV detective in America, Columbo?"
Oh, Mr Devlin, just one more thing, sir.
- Yes, Lieutenant. - I hate to bother you.
[Oliver] You know, just one more question.
"President Blatter, can I just ask you one more question?"
And Andrew really liked this idea. "Oh, yeah. I can do that."
And as it turned out, I had a mackintosh
which was very like the one worn by Columbo,
so I took that along, gave it to Andrew,
and that's how he sort of adopted the Columbo image that he had in the films.
Please, can I come into your press conference?
I said, please, may I come into your press conference?
When? Now?
- Yeah, now. - OK.
- May I come in? - Yes, OK.
Some of your press people won't always let me in.
But I will take care of it, OK?
Let me just ask you.
Do you know which football officials took bribes from the ISL marketing company?
I'm sorry. I don't speak about that.
[Oliver] Once he worked out who he should be targeting,
he would relentlessly pursue whatever the subject was to the ends of the earth.
Can you explain why they paid you in cash?
Did you never take bribes from ISL?
Mr Teixeira! Did you take your bribes through the Sanud company?
Mr Bedoya!
[Spanish accent]
[Jennings] You speak English. That's good English. It's good English. OK, right.
Geoff, can we talk to you?
[whispers] You were saying on the BBC interview this morning
there's no corruption problem at FIFA, and I was a bit puzzled.
[Oliver] And we started driving around Switzerland,
knocking on various doors to see if anyone would talk to us.
Usually met with a polite, "No, thank you."
And then it was on to the next door.
Occasionally you might go for a coffee and they'd say politely,
"Well, yes, but we're not gonna tell you anything,
and even if we did, we're not going on the record."
You've gotta remember that when I started working with Andrew,
he's already been banned by FIFA.
Why am I banned from FIFA House?
- What have I done? - No comment.
[Oliver] So he's persona non grata.
[Jennings] I was banished, but I kept on publishing embarrassing stories.
I disclosed this in the London "Daily Mail".
Within hours, FIFA's website announced,
"President Blatter has instructed their lawyers to file lawsuits
against Andrew Jennings and the "Daily Mail"."
There are legal actions running against this newspaper, against a journalist,
which have put the game in disrepute.
[Jennings] The number of legal threats I've had from that lot,
a few days to retract or there's gonna be massive penalties,
you know, and you wallpaper the walls with them.
What they don't do is they don't use violence,
because they're just white-collar criminals… I hope.
FIFA sent people without FIFA name tags,
spies like Peter Hargitay,
to observe what Andrew said in the bar.
Then people around him that were not his friends.
[Goldblatt] You could see it got under their skins.
Most sports journalists are dependent on the people in power.
…like this in my whole life,
covering matches in the World Cup, Champions League…
[Goldblatt] Is there any industry in which so many people spend so much time
saying absolutely nothing?
An easy enough question for George Karl is look where we are…
[Goldblatt] I mean, it makes mainstream politics
look lucid and transparent by comparison.
…a blanket on top of him.
[Goldblatt] Andrew was so bold in that way,
And he wasn't just gonna rock the boat. He was gonna blow it up and sink it.
In the beginning, it was only two, three critical journalists, maybe five.
Nobody was interested in this.
You would be crazy to send me to report the game.
- I might get the score wrong. - [laughter]
[man] At the time he was seen as the eccentric guy, you know,
bit of an oddball in some ways, but a prolific journalist,
someone who had a story, would go after it.
In those days, you'd get interviewed every week or so,
but it was always about football, always about the game,
not about the politics around football.
[applause]
[Jennings] Thank you very much. Do we have sound?
In the 1990s, they started the Play the Game conference.
…systematic use of drugs in Italian track…
[Andersen] I wanted to improve sports journalism through this conference.
And what triggered me was Andrew, because he was a pioneer.
As Dick Pound said the other night, doping and corruption is so intertwined.
[Liburd] I attended Play the Game conference.
When I look at the schedule, it's just amazing.
Everything, doping in cycling to match fixing.
The people who are there presenting
are all at the top of their field, the top of their game.
Andrew had created a network.
Major League Baseball is back in the news tonight.
[newsreader] The allegation from the Association of Tennis Professionals…
[newsreader 2] …wants authorities to look into how he was not suspended.
The immediate future of sumo wrestling hangs in the balance tonight.
I would say that eight out of ten of the stories
that have marked the international sports agenda,
those journalists have been around Play the Game.
There's a kind of nervousness I see in Blatter these days.
Is he there? Is he there? Is he under there?
Again, it was that excellent reporter, Jean-François Tanda,
who got hold of crucial evidence.
[Andersen] And Andrew used all the days to chat
and showed the way to many of the younger journalists.
He gave them the recipe.
He said, "Don't build on anonymous sources.
Don't build on slandering. Don't build on gossip.
Get the documents."
You've got to get your brilliant stories out to the wider world,
because that way the pressure will come back,
so that something has to be done.
[Goldblatt] It was so fantastic
to see the very small number of sports journalists begin to probe around.
Lasana Liburd, probably the most experienced football reporter
we have in Trinidad and Tobago.
[Goldblatt] So this journalist from Trinidad and Tobago
did a bit of investigation.
And he discovered that 5,000 tickets for the game against England
suddenly are being sold online
as part of a package with a travel agency.
Straightaway, you know, something kind of flashes in my head.
Maybe I should check this out.
So I do some research and found out that Simpaul, it's really run by Jack Warner.
And there was this company, Renraw,
which is actually Warner spelled backwards.
His wife, Maureen, and his sons, Daryan and Daryll,
were all part of the company as well.
[Goldblatt] He then gets delusions of grandeur.
He runs for parliament, he becomes an MP in Trinidad,
and he actually, for a short time, becomes a cabinet minister,
while still doing all of his FIFA and Concacaf jobs.
He's taking money from FIFA that should be going into building training facilities.
When it comes to finding ways of making a buck, he's impressive.
[reporter] It was an earthquake that devastated Haiti,
killing thousands of people,
and Jack Warner, one of football's most powerful men, promised help, FIFA money.
But investigators have claimed it was transferred to accounts
controlled by Warner for his personal use.
Warner has been accused of embezzling $750,000 of aid funds.
[Jennings] How does Warner get away with this?
Blatter may be the president,
but Warner is at present the most powerful man in world soccer.
All right, no problem. We talk again later. All right.
[Oliver] We wanted to interview Jack Warner.
Obviously he didn't want to be interviewed.
[Jennings] One of his lawyers in Trinidad emailed me and said if I asked questions,
appropriate action would be taken,
and I can't imagine what they were talking about.
I'm a journalist, like you.
I ask questions politely, fairly, firmly if necessary.
[Oliver] And then we got tipped that he was going to be landing with the team.
So we thought, brilliant, we know where he's gonna be, and we waited for him.
And I remember Andrew kind of leaning forward,
and everybody leaning in to hear what he had to say.
And Andrew said, um, "Let's get these corrupt fuckers."
- Mr Warner, hello again. - Leave me alone.
- Can I ask you how much… - Leave me alone.
Please don't do that. Can I ask you how much money you're making?
- Leave me alone. - [man] Please do something for us now.
[Jennings] Please don't do that.
I'm trying to ask you how much profit you're making
from World Cup tickets this year.
Why is it your family always gets the juiciest fee for contracts?
Mister, leave me alone, please. Leave me alone, please. Leave me alone.
- Leave me alone. - [Jennings] …this year.
Hello? Mr Warner? I know… Please.
Why won't you talk about these football issues?
Good evening, Mr Warner. Andrew Jennings, BBC Panorama programme.
- Would you give me an interview? - Excuse, excuse.
- Would you…? - Excuse us, please.
We're on the public highway. Please don't interrupt.
"Mr Jennings went as far as attempting to physically obstruct me
from taking the podium."
[Oliver] We found out afterwards, Jack Warner issued a press release,
which was hilariously headlined "Operation Get Jack Warner".
[Jennings] "His actions provoked a crowd of onlookers
who sought to keep Mr Jennings from my path.
I caution him to be less irresponsible in the future."
[Oliver] I think he found being questioned by Andrew deeply offensive.
How dare this scruffy journalist ask me questions about my business affairs?
Here I am arriving with the Soca Warriors. Andrew Jennings is there.
Here I am going to speak to my people.
Andrew Jennings there asking me annoying questions.
Here I am arriving in Zurich.
It's Andrew Jennings asking annoying questions.
Mr Warner, good morning. Welcome to Zurich.
How much profit did you make selling World Cup tickets this year?
It's only a very polite inquiry, Mr Warner.
If you could spit on me, you would spit on me?
Why would you spit on me?
[Oliver] It was surprising. I think Andrew was actually delighted.
For us, it is really good television, because it demonstrates
here's a guy not willing to respond to even reasonable questions,
and that says something.
How much money did you make selling World Cup tickets this year?
Ask your mother.
- Ask…? - Your mother.
Ask my mother? My mother's dead, actually.
- But nice of you to remind me of that. - Go to find her. Find her.
Thank you so much, Mr Warner. Thank you.
[Liburd] So often in our line of work,
we do stories hoping that we can create change.
And, you know, a story's done, but people kept it in a blind eye.
Jack Warner was involved in the black market ticket trade again.
Why hasn't this been investigated by FIFA?
The Jack Warner case is not a case that we have dealt with.
Should it be knowledgeable to us
by official means or by official channels,
then naturally then we would have a look on that.
[Oliver] There were no consequences. Jack Warner stayed on.
I remember my editor at the time sort of saying afterwards, you know,
"Well… I don't know, what's the point, you know?
We show this corruption, and nothing happens."
Andrew viewed it slightly differently. He said there was a bright side to this.
He said, "Well, you know, we'll be able to do another story
because they're still there."
[cheering]
The decision of the Confederation of African Football
to hold the 20th Nations Cup tournament in South Africa
is the best gift Africa could present our sporting community
and in particular to the soccer fraternity.
For this we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
[Jennings] South Africa is being looted by FIFA,
and I knew that three years ago when Blatter went to the African Union.
And when he said, "We're doing this for Africa",
I knew Africa was gonna get robbed blind.
It brings tears to your eyes
to see that it's bringing nothing whatsoever to the ordinary folk.
[cheering]
[Wright] I got sent to go write
about the stadiums they were building in South Africa,
and it took about 30 seconds to figure out that, like, this doesn't make sense.
You cannot separate the way people feel about their sports teams
from the way that they feel about their home.
That's all politics is really,
is weaponising people's hopes and dreams and fears about their home.
[reporter] When South Africa won the bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup,
attention immediately turned to whether the Rainbow Nation
could provide FIFA-approved stadia.
South Africa put ten world-class venues across nine host cities.
[Liburd] But FIFA doesn't actually put money in constructing football stadia.
Only governments, you know, spend taxpayers' money in that way.
[man] Our government is concerned about developing spaces,
not population development.
By building these stadia, they are moving people away
from their original places, even in rural areas.
To us, this World Cup is a mass eviction of poor people.
[man 2] South Africa's spent more than three billion euros building stadiums.
[woman] It cost nearly $150 million to build the stadium,
and only four FIFA games will be played here.
Some locals are asking, could the money have been better spent on something else?
[man 3] You know, this has been a gigantic pyramid scheme
where we've hosted the tournament, we've paid for it,
but the profits go somewhere else.
It just seems like a new form of colonialism to me.
[Wright Thompson] No country that has voters ever wants a World Cup.
The only people who ever have to host a World Cup
are people who have it shoved down their throat
by people in power who have ulterior motives.
Sasha. Sasha, wake up.
[chanting] Sasha! Sasha! Sasha! Sasha!
Hi, I'm Nicole Kidman, and I'm gonna show you
why Australia is ready to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022.
What makes us want to host the World Cup is our belief in football.
Bringing the World Cup to Qatar will be bringing the World Cup
to the Middle East for the first time.
[man] It's obvious why we would like to host the World Cup.
So why should England be chosen?
We have fantastic stadiums, some of the best.
[man 2] Would we love the World Cup in the United States?
In how many languages can you say, "Oh, yeah"?
Countries enter bidding contests for a number of reasons,
the key one of which is usually to exercise influence through soft diplomacy.
In 2009, it was understood that the big rivals for 2022
were Australia and the USA.
Mr Obama is naturally advocating,
please, President Blatter, make another move towards United States.
[Mersiades] And frankly the US could host a World Cup tomorrow.
That's just such a big country with all the facilities you need.
[Goldblatt] I think the English-speaking nations that were bidding,
there was extraordinary naivety.
The Americans are handing out goody bags
with a badge, a pencil and a signed biography of Bill Clinton.
I spoke to Lord Triesman, and I asked him, you know, "How's the bid going?"
And he said, "We're gonna play absolutely straight, no bribery,
absolutely on our merits."
And I thought, "Bless you. I love you.
You can never, ever, ever win the World Cup."
The 2018 World Cup, do you think you have a good chance to host it?
[speaks Russian]
[interpreter] I proceed from the assumption
that the members of FIFA will adopt the decision in favour of Russia's choice.
[man] The Australian government strongly supports Australia's bid
to host the FIFA World Cup.
I hope and pray that we may be the lucky country.
[Mersiades] And at the time, I had a bit of a suspicion about Qatar.
And in fact one of our consultants said, you know, "Don't be stupid.
Of course Qatar are not going to win it. They can't possibly host it.
Qatar's hot, you know, it's bloody hot in June,
and not even Mohammed wants it."
Referring to Mohammed bin Hammam, who is on the FIFA executive committee.
But what I found over the course of digging a bit deeper into this was,
it was absolutely clear, nothing is based on merit.
Australia paid $14.7 million to three supposed consultants
during the bidding for the World Cup.
This is an established fact.
The consultants they hired were totally dirty.
Peter Hargitay, he was locked up for seven months in 1997
for cocaine trafficking and bond fraud.
Millions and millions of British pounds went into those consultants,
and it was reasonable to suspect
that most of that money was black bag money.
Consultants and bidding committees have become very, very good
over the last 20 years of working out who's available,
what do they want and how do you get to them?
The FIFA executive committee was the body that made the decision
on who gets to host the World Cup.
So to win 2018 or 2022, you had to please 13 of the 24 men.
[Goldblatt] So it's people like Chuck Blazer.
It's people like Jack Warner.
These are the kinds of characters who are making the decision.
And we all know that they have their price.
[Mersiades] I had gone to my boss and my boss's boss and said,
"Look, I'm not comfortable with what we're doing."
There was no way this was a merit-based assessment.
And the result of that was I was eventually sacked
because it just became too annoying for them to keep hearing it.
But Andrew Jennings always used to say to me, "Revenge is best served cold."
And that was his understanding, that in gathering evidence,
putting together papers, that can take time.
He would always end every conversation with, "Onwards and upwards."
And I found that really quite inspiring.
[Jennings] Thank you for doing this. I'm sorry we're not being more hospitable.
[Oliver] Not at all.
[Jennings] We're going flat out on working out a one-hour film.
- [Oliver] What's the next film about? - Well, FIFA.
[laughter]
I think, as a journalist, you're always hoping to get hold of the document
that will absolutely nail the story.
And it doesn't happen very often.
[Jennings] Stupid sports reporters.
[Oliver] We didn't have enough to name names,
and nobody in the sport will go on the record.
[phone rings]
Until Andrew got a call from a source.
James, are you there?
[Oliver] We flew out to meet someone.
We didn't know how much they were gonna tell us.
And Andrew's kind of doing the pitch.
"You know that any information you give me, absolutely in confidence."
I can see the guy's got his hand down
and he's sort of pulling out a couple of leaves of paper,
pulling it half out, and then it goes down again
as Andrew keeps talking, and then it comes up again,
there's a gap, and then it's down.
And I'm going, "Andrew, Andrew, I think he's got something for us."
[Jennings] Eventually I looked at it. He reached into his briefcase.
He produced some sheets of paper and he said,
"I think this is what you've been waiting for."
[Oliver] "I think this is what you've been waiting for."
And that was the ISL bribe list.
A trusted source delivered the goods.
[commentator speaks Spanish]
[in Spanish] Goal!
Goal!
[Oliver] This had been something Andrew had been after for God knows how long.
I got hold of a list of 106 bribes totalling 100 million US dollars.
[Oliver] What made it so valuable to us
was that in four cases, names had been attached.
We knew it, but we couldn't prove it, and suddenly there was the proof.
[Jennings] Havelange had 45 million US dollars, at least,
for those fantastic really non-tender contracts for the World Cup.
[Oliver] "Holy grail" might sound a bit over the top,
but it was absolutely what we'd been hoping for and wishing for
and trying to find for a very long time.
And then we had a few beers, and I phoned my editor.
We suddenly had evidence against three of the people,
the executive committee members, who are about to vote
on who should get the 2018 and '22 World Cup.
For a moment, that's triumph.
- [bleep] - [Panorama theme music]
[reporter] Last night's "Panorama" claimed that three of the men
who will have a vote on Thursday
took bribes from a Swiss sports marketing firm.
[interpreter] The FIFA members have been slandered absolutely groundlessly.
They want to compromise that organisation.
The allegations were made in a BBC television programme.
Of course it has an impact.
[reporter] The English bid team is well aware of the damage
that's likely to have been caused to their campaign.
There was this nationalist atmosphere: don't rock the boat.
[reporter] There's no doubt that England 2018
are worried about the possible fallout from Monday's Panorama.
The England Football Association actually asking the BBC
not to broadcast the programme, which is just extraordinary.
Is it frustrating that Panorama's doing this programme a few days before?
Of course it is.
Just last week, the chief executive, Andy Anson, described the BBC as unpatriotic.
[Oliver] The Sun newspaper's headline was "BBC Brainless Betraying Cretinous".
And that was us.
[reporter] England's bid team say all of this is upsetting some of the key voters,
such as this man, FIFA vice president Jack Warner,
who claimed this week the BBC had a death wish.
[Oliver] I think the view was taken that we were going to lose England the vote.
I just would love the World Cup to come to this country.
I think it's long overdue.
[Lineker] I was drafted in very late.
When your country calls you, you have to try and do your bit,
although I thought it was a bit of a late shout.
[reporter] Footballers, prime ministers
and even our future king are descending on Zurich.
The challenge for the English delegation is to negate the impact of this.
In the past few minutes, FIFA has issued a statement
saying that the allegations made in the BBC programme
refer to a case dating back many years
and that the investigation and the case are definitely closed.
[Mersiades] Then they just did the usual thing of saying,
"Well, this is all old stuff. We knew all this."
Yet, in fact, they didn't, because the list with the names
and the amounts of money and the dates on which it was transferred
had not been previously known or published.
And yet the reception was,
"Don't take any notice of him cos he's a discredited moron.
People should just ignore it."
And that's precisely what they did.
[Lineker] It was the night before the vote to decide.
I thought it was extraordinarily odd,
because when I looked around the room,
all the other countries that were bidding weren't there.
And I thought to myself, I thought,
"This is all decided. Everybody knows what's happening here."
Cos it was just so obviously, obviously corrupt.
[reporter] England has just finished, and now Russia is making
its final presentation in front of the FIFA executives.
This is the last pitch before the decision, the voting process.
[newsreader] We're less than two hours away.
FIFA is set to reveal host countries for the World Cup in 2018 and 2022.
It's the first time that they have ever announced back-to-back bids.
The US is a strong candidate for 2022.
The FIFA executive committee has undertaken the voting a few minutes ago.
The president will announce the results of the voting.
[Blatter] It has been explained to you,
we have to give two World Cups on the same day.
Big, big compliments to all the bidders,
accompanied by their political dignitaries.
They have all delivered messages saying that football is more than a game.
So, ladies and gentlemen, everybody is now awaiting
the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
2018 FIFA World Cup, ladies and gentlemen,
will be organised in Russia.
[Lineker] When Russia won, that was a huge blow.
They were shocked, absolutely shocked.
Congratulations to Russia.
[Lineker] But the 2022 one was… was gobsmacking.
The winner to organise
the 2022 FIFA World Cup…
is Qatar.
You just thought, "How?"
And I remember sitting in that auditorium,
and I felt like I needed to get back to the hotel and have a shower.
It just felt dirty.
And they won it easily.
[Mersiades] Qatar in particular was such a surprise to everybody.
They won it so quickly.
In four votes, it was over.
Almost from that second, FIFA knew that it was in trouble.
There's stories of Jérôme Valcke, the second in command,
rocking and shaking his head at the back of the communications bus
as they go back to headquarters, saying, "FIFA is over."
This has been, you know… This has been a step too far.
The prime minister gave us support, the way Prince William gave us support,
the way, you know, everyone performed up there with…
I think it was a mixture of emotions to be ridiculed in that way
by losing out at the first stage,
to not get any votes, just one in the first round.
There was a degree of panic as to how this would be seen.
I certainly know one thing, which is when it comes to breaking promises,
politicians have got nothing on football management.
- I… I, um… - [laughter and cheering]
[reporter] After pouring $45 million into a World Cup campaign,
Australia received just one vote.
I'm bitterly disappointed, disappointed for you.
[man] Why decide to put a World Cup in Qatar, which is vastly too hot,
against the advice of their own safety committee?
50 degrees Celsius is 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
You are hosting the World Cup somewhere where soccer cannot physically be played.
They are not a football country.
Uh, the level… football level is very low in this country.
[man] I think it's unusual, to say the least,
to hold an event of this extraordinary magnitude
in a country, in effect, of one city.
The silver lining of those two countries winning it, and particularly Qatar,
because it seemed such a nonsensical decision on the face of it,
was that it started to make people ask questions about FIFA.
Russia gets the bid in '18 and Qatar gets it in 2022.
Is it possible that they just wanna give it to places
that have never had the World Cup before?
It's possible that they wanna grow those markets,
although I don't know what the market in Qatar is exactly.
[reporter] Now, you may not know much about Qatar's soccer team.
They've never qualified for the World Cup. Now automatically they're gonna get in.
Pretty big coup, to say the least, for a country that only existed since 1971.
The most interesting thing about Qatar
is the huge differences inside the country.
They are really rich, they live in fancy buildings,
and then you have the migrant workers who are building all this.
They are definitely not from Qatar.
They come from all around the world.
[Hill] The issue for Qatar has always been
that it's a small, extraordinary rich country
and almost indefensible by hard power.
Their nightmare, their collective nightmare,
was what had happened to the Kuwaitis in 1989.
This conflict started when the dictator of Iraq
invaded a small and helpless neighbour.
[Hill] The Qataris looked at this, said,
"We've gotta figure out a way of defending ourselves
by building soft power."
That's why we see Qatar going on a massive spending spree
over the past few years, you know, buying banks in the region,
buying trophy assets, buying Paris Saint-Germain.
[Hill] Which was the French establishment team.
They spent 220 million euro on just one player.
[reporter] This absolutely shatters the previous world record fee,
which was around the $115 million mark.
This is all part of the strategy, Richard.
[Hill] This was a few weeks after Saudi Arabia had surrounded Qatar in a blockade.
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, that time,
flies to Saudi Arabia to help, quote, "negotiate" on behalf of Qatar
and end the blockade with Saudi Arabia.
[newsreader] Saudi Arabia announced the kingdom is ending
its embargo of the Arab state.
[Hill] That is an extraordinarily effective tactic of soft power,
when you consider the expense and the resources needed for hard power,
relatively cheap.
If they had bought a fighter jet,
it would have cost them 500 million euro
and it wouldn't have stopped a Saudi invasion by more than 15, 20 minutes,
but by buying one football player,
they were able to help bring an end to this blockade.
[newsreader] Allegations that Qatar bought its way to hosting the World Cup
have been vigorously denied by the chief executive of Qatar's bid.
Speaking for the first time since their victory,
Hassan Al Thawadi told the BBC
that claims of corruption were based on prejudice.
Absolute outrage. Why?
If there's evidence, investigate the evidence.
I agree with that completely, and we've always said that. Please go ahead.
But there's no evidence, there's nothing there,
and it's based on rumours.
I witnessed 1.5 million dollars being offered to three Exco members
in exchange for them to vote for the Qatar 2022 bid.
[Jennings] Nobody wants to go to Qatar.
The fans don't wanna go. The footballers don't wanna go.
The clubs don't wanna let them go.
What has Qatar done to deserve this honour?
Forced labour of migrant workers,
death penalty for same-sex relations and blasphemy,
flogging for alcohol consumption,
a ban on all political parties,
the guardianship system for women,
and major restrictions on freedom of expression.
This is Qatar's track record.
[reporter] Fans, knowing that there are designated spots where you can drink,
will overconsume alcohol to make up for it.
This is turning into a Fyre Festival sort of deal.
Qatar is a huge, huge problem for the sport.
In fact, Beckham himself,
I don't really understand why he's getting involved with this.
He's extremely rich already.
I'll be there.
[man] I mean, he's worth about 400 million pounds.
Is it gonna make a big difference to him?
[man 2] Critics of Qatar will say, "They're buying their way into the books,
into the favours of governments and organisations."
Protests have been building up, and I think they will go on building up.
And that's why journalists named the people
who really gave it to the Gulf and to Putin.
[bell rings]
[piano intro plays]
♪ I found my thrill ♪
♪ On Blueberry Hill… ♪
[Goldblatt] I think we should remember that the Qatar World Cup
was awarded at the same time that Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup.
And it always strikes me as odd that Russia,
who was an authoritarian society,
is sort of waved through.
[reporter] More allegations of bribery emerged in the British press on Sunday.
The most sensational allegation of all was that Russian President Vladimir Putin
allegedly bought European football chief Michel Platini a rare Picasso painting.
- [interviewer, in French] In English? - I don't speak English.
[applause]
Ladies and gentlemen, we are honoured to win in this tough and fair fight.
You can take my word for it,
the 2018 World Cup in Russia will be up to the highest standards.
Now, here's the thing. Putin has already won this World Cup just by getting it.
Russia as a whole, tourists now see it as this, like, open, fun place.
- Russia's the best! - Russia forever! Russia!
We believe that politics should be independent from football.
Russia's operations in the world of football
have been very smart, very slick and very organised.
I mean, when you've got a world-class intelligence agency
that you're prepared to use,
who wants to go and investigate Russia?
[reporter] Russia's human rights record is poor, to say the least.
And Putin wants to break out of that.
He wants to say, "Russia's not what you think.
Russia is not the evil empire, even though there's problems between us."
[Goldblatt] And the Garcia Report, which was FIFA's response to these allegations,
you know, they went to the Russians and said, "We wanna see your emails."
And they said, "You can't see our emails."
"Why can't we see your emails? They're all on your server."
And they said, "Oh, yes, the server… burnt in a fire."
[Mersiades] So what did they do?
Garcia, after this very expensive report,
in which he travelled around the world in typical FIFA luxury,
he came out with a report which said there was nothing to see with Russia,
there was nothing to see with Qatar.
[reporter] Qatar and Russia were cleared today,
even though the Russians said, basically, "The dog ate my homework",
and FIFA just accepted this and cleared them.
This just makes a mockery of the organisation, doesn't it?
Well, it's very Kafkaesque, I guess, is the best way to put it, and very FIFA.
[Szymanski] This is not the first time we've seen FIFA
turning its back on political issues
and turning a blind eye to unsavoury regimes
with which they were doing business.
The 1978 World Cup happened in the middle of the Dirty War,
a period of time in Argentina
when a military dictatorship took over for the democratically elected government
and started going around
and they started disappearing people.
They would take them to these concentration camps.
They would basically torture them till they named names.
[cheering]
People in a concentration camp could hear the cheers from the stadium,
which is not that far away from where they were being tortured.
And then the people they tortured,
they would take them up in airplanes
and throw them out alive.
[in Spanish] They're not here, neither dead or alive. They are missing.
[Wright Thompson] The night that Argentina won the 1978 World Cup,
they drove prisoners through the celebration, as if to say,
"They don't care about you. They don't even know that you're missing.
The joy of this has washed even your existence away."
Sportswashing, it's existed for a very long time.
But in modern times, unfortunately, we're seeing that getting worse.
We've seen it in motor racing.
We've seen it in… We've seen cricket playing out there.
There's been obviously golf now,
with the whole LIV tour and how that's torn golf apart.
Sportswashing makes you forget a country's crimes,
the human rights abuses.
Instead you see the wonderful opening ceremonies,
you see hundreds of athletes enjoying themselves.
As viewers, we cannot make a difference here, but the sporting bodies can.
So can the sponsors and governments.
[newsreader] The title of your article, "Soccer Needs To Kick Out Its Dictator".
Explain why Sepp Blatter, in your words, is a dictator.
Well, Sepp Blatter has been at… with FIFA since 1975.
There's nobody else inside FIFA who could stand up to him.
[Togoni] Bin Hammam was upset.
He supported Blatter for his election in 1998.
Blatter said he will not stay like Havelange forever.
He promised to step down after two terms.
But Blatter then, he cancelled this.
Blatter went for a third term and he was trying to go for a fourth term.
[Goldblatt] In 2011, Bin Hammam, he's manoeuvring
and thinking Blatter's upset enough people, now is the moment to strike.
So Mo, as I like to call him, calls Jack and says,
"Concacaf has 35 votes. Jack, get your people together."
Jack calls a special meeting of the Caribbean Football Union
and they all meet in the Royal Hyatt in Port-of-Spain in Trinidad.
And Jack gives a speech, which is actually recorded, where he basically says,
"This is a gift from Qatar. Just think of this as a goodwill gift."
$40,000 in cash in brown envelopes,
an actual brown Manila envelope
for every single president of every single Caribbean federation.
[Warner] The gift you get is for you to determine how best you want to use it,
and if there is anybody here who has a conscience
and wishes to send back the money,
I am willing to take it and give it back to him at the end of the month.
The new exploitation is a new form of colonialism.
Give the buggers money and they'll vote for us.
That's how Blatter won the last election.
Cos what would you do if you were penniless in Rwanda
and a guy from the Gulf turned up and offered you 10,000 US dollars to vote?
What do you say to your wife and kids? What do you say to them?
[Warner] There are some people here who believe they are more pious than thou.
If you are pious, open a church, friends, right?
But the fact is our business is our business.
[Goldblatt] This is our business. Business doesn't go out of this room.
But some people have a moment of conscience,
and a couple of them actually phone Chuck Blazer,
Chuck Blazer, back in New York.
Blazer can't believe this. It's so brazen. Even for Chuck Blazer.
And Chuck panics. And is this gonna get out?
And are they gonna call FIFA?
And how is this gonna look? And am I gonna get caught?
And he calls FIFA. He calls Blatter that weekend and spills the beans.
And of course Blatter is delighted that his upstart competitor, Bin Hammam,
has been caught red-handed.
[reporter] According to sources I've spoken to tonight,
Bin Hammam and Warner are accused
of trying to bribe Caribbean football officials with bundles of cash
in return for supporting Bin Hammam in next week's FIFA vote.
[Goldblatt] Blatter put the news out:
Chuck Blazer is the honest whistleblower in all of this.
[reporter] And here's the whistleblower, American official Chuck Blazer.
His dossier of evidence will now be considered
by FIFA's ethics committee on Sunday.
Crisis? What is the crisis? We are not in a crisis.
We are only in some difficulties,
and these difficulties will be solved, will be solved inside our family.
[applause]
[reporter] FIFA did its best to keep up the pretence,
taking trouble to count all 186 votes which Blatter polled today.
But it didn't take too long, and here's why.
And they should at least have added a second box
so that your options weren't vote Blatter or go [bleep] yourself.
Given that the re-election of Sepp Blatter
has brought FIFA even further into disrepute,
will he take this opportunity to voice his support
for those who are calling for the reforms we need
to finally show Mr Blatter the red card?
Hear! Hear!
They're furious in America, you guys are furious in Australia,
the Dutch are also angry, and slowly the temperature is going up.
At last it's going up in England
over the way these people have made fools of us and fools of you as well.
The election with just one candidate was something of a farce,
but ultimately change has got to come from within football.
[Oliver] Football itself seemed incapable of dealing with it.
Still I hear sports reporters going,
"Well, I think President Blatter wants to reform."
And you just think, "What are they smoking?
Was Mr Capone gonna close down the mafia in Chicago?
Can we get real about this?"
I think we should really do something,
but you should keep in mind we are not so powerful.
[Andersen] I'm sorry to say this, because I know that the US
is sometimes a little overeager imposing its order in this world,
but the Europeans talk and discuss
and make recommendations and resolutions, then guidelines.
But nothing in international sport really changes until the cavalry comes.
[Jennings] The FBI came looking for me.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the G-men,
the one with the curly bits in their ears.
I saw all their business cards. They were the real thing.
But they weren't coming to take me away. They wanted to talk to me.
They wanted to know what I knew, having spent years investigating FIFA.
I got hold of Chuck Blazer's reports at Concacaf,
and it showed that he was stealing so much money
and he wasn't paying tax on it, the naughty boy.
And I actually spoke to the feds and said,
"Look, I think I should maybe give these to the Internal Revenue Service,
because here's tax evasion, or I could give them to you."
And the fella said, "Mr Jennings, I can't tell you what to do,
but I'd really like to see them."
So I emailed them over. They read them.
Within a few days, I think, Chuck Blazer was lifted,
and he rolled over, as we say.
This is what they did. They went to him and said, "Chuck, you are fired.
Either you work with us or you go to jail for the rest of your life,
and you will be sentenced and we will take away everything."
They gave him a recording device in a key fob.
He also recorded a lot of telephone calls to his apartment and offices.
He recorded a bunch of people for several years.
[Andersen] He brings his key to the London Olympics.
He put it on the table, talks to his friends.
"Do you remember the good old days when we made this TV deal?
You got way too much out of it."
"No, I only got 10 million."
Chuck Blazer was the glue.
It was not what we would call a hard flip.
There really is no other option for him.
I feel betrayed. This shouldn't be… This shouldn't happen.
But, I mean, decisions are taken to…
ultimately to punish those who've transgressed.
[siren wails]
[Frankel] He's the one who gives us,
"That guy's dirty, that guy's dirty, that guy's dirty."
In other words, a home run.
[cheering]
[newsreader] As FIFA officials gathered for their annual meeting
at a luxury hotel in Zurich, Swiss authorities made their move.
Shortly after breakfast, they entered individual hotel rooms.
[newsreader 2] The biggest scandal ever in the world's biggest sport
unfolded in dramatic fashion this morning
with arrests in Zurich, Switzerland.
[newsreader 3] Swiss authorities were acting
at the request of the US Attorney General's office.
[newsreader 4] Interpol issues red notices for six FIFA executives
wanted by the US Attorney General.
I've been waiting for this because, of course,
I've been talking to the FBI for six years now,
and I gave them a lot of the documentation.
[Oliver] It turned out a lot of the bribery had gone through banks in the US,
the United States claiming jurisdiction.
[newsreader] Just hours after the arrest of FIFA officials in Switzerland,
US prosecutors in New York were laying out the case against them.
The 47-count indictment against these individuals
includes charges of racketeering, wire fraud
and money laundering conspiracies spanning two decades.
What took so long? What the [bleep]?
[Frankel] What has been revealed so far is a mafia-style crime syndicate.
[Oliver] When he read that indictment,
not only vindicated the journalism we had done
in that there was a corruption problem,
but, beyond that, clearly the FBI agreed that this was organised crime,
and that's what it was.
US prosecutors say briefcases full of cash
decided media and marketing rights, even the site of the World Cup.
What the American investigators found was a system of corruption
that tainted almost everything inside that organisation.
And as you go through the dozens of pages around the FIFA indictments
and the eventual convictions and the plea bargains,
you see that there was corruption in the broadcast rights,
corruption in the ticketing rights, corruption in the sponsorship,
there was corruption in the venue hostings.
Almost everything that FIFA could touch in a business way
had in some way been corrupted.
[newsreader] The former vice president of FIFA
spent nearly seven million in bribes to secure the World Cup for Qatar.
Andrew Jennings, Thomas Kistner, and Jens Weinreich were ecstatic.
For seven, eight, ten, fifteen years, they had been told they were obsessed,
that they were negative, that they were only out to make harm to sport.
You can imagine that having these facts confirmed,
it was way beyond their imagination.
I rang Andrew straightaway and he was already packing
to get on a train to Zurich, to enjoy the moment.
And he thoroughly deserved to.
That's what we do. We're not here to be loved.
We're here to get the bloody story.
We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.
So when you see pictures from around the world of kids barefoot playing soccer,
know that they could have had boots,
they could have had good uniforms, they could have had good pitches,
but the thieves running FIFA took the money for themselves.
[Lynch] I want to make clear that the defendants arrested this morning
will receive a fair trial if they are brought to this country.
If you listen very carefully, if you hold that microphone up,
you might hear the sobbing.
When they sent me to prison yesterday, they thought they would have broken me.
On the other hand, they have made me stronger.
The Americans are trying to put the hurt on FIFA
since they did not get the World Cup.
[reporter] A source close to the US investigation has told the BBC
they're working through 75 bank accounts connected to Jack Warner
but admit some of FIFA's missing millions may never be found.
And we still do not know today where 70% of the bribes ended up.
[woman] One citizen brings us into disrepute,
has brought us into shame and humiliation.
One citizen.
He should do all that he can to cooperate with the US authorities.
[Warner] The member asked me to cooperate with the US authorities,
but, Mr Speaker, I tell this house and this country,
I tell you today that I will have the last laugh.
[newsreader] Of the 24 members on the executive committee,
14 have been indicted or implicated in the corruption scandal.
Another three have retired,
leaving just seven of the original group on the current executive committee.
The other part of the focus obviously is Sepp Blatter himself, the president.
Now, he's up for re-election on Friday.
It seems inconceivable that he could possibly be re-elected.
Do you think he could be?
If it was a normal organisation, I would say no, but FIFA's not normal.
FIFA is not corrupt.
- Definitely not. - [applause]
[man] It's a disgrace!
You should be banned from football for years!
Not a lot of good things have happened with Sepp Blatter as president.
[in Portuguese] They all need to go to prison!
As a football fan and loving the game, it's kind of a slap in the face.
Sepp Blatter definitely needs to step down.
What really broke the straw was when he said, "I'm not leaving."
[newsreader] Blatter has not been indicted and is favoured to win
an unprecedented fifth term tomorrow,
extending his 17-year reign and his reputation as a survivor.
In the past, when there's been controversies,
when there's been investigations, many in FIFA have fallen.
Those that have fallen conveniently are his enemies.
It's like a Stalinist purge.
[newsreader] Coming to Blatter's defence today, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
[Putin speaks Russian]
[newsreader] Accusing US authorities of meddling
and trying to wrestle away Russia's hosting the 2018 World Cup.
[interpreter] It's just another attempt to extend their jurisdiction
to other countries.
It's apparent from recent news reports that they'd benefit
from some new leadership,
but obviously those kinds of decisions will have to be made
by the members of the organisation.
I am still the president until Friday, let's say six o'clock in the afternoon.
[Goldblatt] Blatter's performance in the face of this is absolutely extraordinary.
He is able to get up in front of the congress and say,
"I am the man to clean out the stables. I'm the man to vote for."
I will be in command of this boat called FIFA,
and we will bring it back.
We will bring it back offshore.
[Andersen] You would think that the revelation,
the biggest systemic corruption scandal ever in international sport,
would put an end to Sepp Blatter.
But, no, not at all.
Let's go, FIFA. Let's go, FIFA. Thank you.
Sepp Blatter has won a fifth term as president.
Come on! Under FIFA system, leadership never changes.
Their elections are such a joke.
[Goldblatt] There are lots of people that Blatter had done a lot of favours for,
and that was repaid many times over at the 2015 congress.
The majority of this congress don't want a change,
so that says a lot about the people who voted this way.
[man] Are you concerned at some stage you might be arrested?
Arrested for what?
Next question.
[Goldblatt] I am sure over that weekend
that Blatter mentally went through the filing cabinet in his head.
If the FBI and the American legal system are this deep,
what are the documents they're gonna see?
Where is my name on it,
and if my name's not on it, can it be traced back to me?
[woman] Blatter, Blatter, have some shame!
[protestors] Blatter, Blatter, have some shame.
Sepp Blatter, step down!
[woman] Sepp Blatter, step down!
I am doing my job, and I will do it until the last day of my mandate.
[reporter] He's in denial, isn't he?
He can't accept that the whole world don't want him there.
Frankly what we've seen is the ugly side of the beautiful game, and he should go.
All the arrests in the world are gonna change nothing
as long as Blatter is still there.
We have a situation where Sepp Blatter, is a bit like Monty Python's Black Knight.
There's blood spurting everywhere and he just thinks it's a flesh wound.
[protestor] Fuck off, Blatter!
I cannot monitor everyone all of the time.
He believes he is FIFA, still.
He can't believe that his creature has turned upon him.
It's like Dr Frankenstein being beaten to death by his own monster.
[Blatter] I'm now 40 years in FIFA, 17 years the president of FIFA.
This is my manifesto.
- [Black Knight] I'm invincible! - Right!
[newsreader] The shock announcement came just days after Blatter was re-elected
as FIFA president.
The man who ruled FIFA with an iron grip for 17 years, Sepp Blatter, has resigned.
[in French] This is why I will call an extraordinary congress
and dispose of my function.
[Goldblatt] It was extraordinary.
On the Monday morning, in one of the most low-key press conferences,
he said, "I'm gonna resign."
It's not very hard to clean up football. It's very easy, actually.
You just sack 'em all. You're gone. Bye!
This is just the beginning.
Have you got it, boys? It's just the beginning!
[echoes] Beginning, beginning, beginning, beginning…
[man] With the announcement that FIFA President Blatter plans to step down,
now is the time for the United States to engage
and determine how we can encourage meaningful reforms.
You're our witness from outside the United States.
What influence do you think that America has in regard to reforming FIFA?
What America can do is engage
with clean, decent football associations around the world,
create a new organisation based in another land
and invite sponsors and TV networks to go with them.
Mr Jennings, would you agree that American corporate sponsors
like Nike, McDonald's, Visa and Coca-Cola have been enablers?
Oh, yes, the sponsors have said,
"Oh, well, we only support the World Cup. We don't support FIFA."
Well, isn't that tough and brave of them?
It only took the FBI and the IRS a few weeks
to check out the information that I gave them.
They arrested Chuck Blazer,
he immediately turned informant, and FIFA has imploded.
You know, once upon a time, FIFA officials walked down the street
with the FIFA blazer, the logo, "I'm from FIFA, I'm important."
Who would do that now? Who would dare do that now?
None of them.
- [man] This hearing is now adjourned. - Where can we all sit and make jokes?
- For the serious stuff. - Let's do that in the back.
- And, uh, I'd love a glass of water. - Yeah, absolutely, of course.
[hums]
[Oliver] As I understand it, they were getting up to go in the morning,
start filming.
I get a call from my colleague. Andrew's in hospital.
And I said, "What's happened?"
And he said, "Well, we got up this morning, I was waiting in the lobby,
Andrew walked in and he collapsed in the hotel lobby."
We were still making the film.
And when he was well enough, we got him flown back to the UK.
Then it became a question of what are we gonna do with the film?
As soon as I could speak to him, it was clear he wanted…
"Yes, I want the film done. I want it finished."
[Jennings] Sepp Blatter declined to respond to our questions,
as did most of his officials.
Jack Warner told us he rejected all our allegations
and is fighting extradition to the US.
But Jack's already been banned from the game for life.
[Oliver] As with most stroke victims, it affected his ability to talk.
Unfortunately one letter he had a real problem with was F,
which apparently led to a lot of other words beginning with F.
But he did it, which was an amazing tribute to his dedication to his job.
What's been driving you all these years,
despite the number of… of encounters you've had
and been ignored or told to go away?
What's kept you going?
It's a good story.
I shall be very interested to see in February,
when apparently they claim
they're going to hold an election for the next president,
who is turning up.
[interviewer] You see this as a cathartic moment?
Or is that still yet to come from your perspective?
[Jennings] Oh, it's still yet to come.
Listen, FIFA's got a long way to fall before it picks up.
So, no, it's been fun. We'll get to the end.
[Mersiades] I'm a fairly optimistic person,
so I always like to think that something can change.
[announcer] Total number of valid votes for Gianni Infantino: 115.
The point I always return to is when it comes to culture versus process,
culture wins every time.
And in the changes we've seen in FIFA since 2016,
I don't see the culture changing.
And we will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA,
and everyone in the world will applaud us and will applaud all of you.
[Mersiades] If you look at Andrew Jenning's words,
that this is a mafia-style organisation,
you can just take people out of the positions
and someone else will drop in and basically undertake the same role.
The reforms need to be implemented now. They need to be implemented from day one.
In my opinion, what has happened at FIFA is a creation of a lie machine,
a creation of a media manipulation scene.
Very similar to the tobacco industry strategy in the 1980s.
We created recently FIFA+, which is a great streaming platform as well.
The scary thought here is that FIFA
will actually be putting out its own brand of fake news
and not try to get reforms done.
[Goldblatt] FIFA had the movie made, "United Passions", about its own history.
- All right, Sophie? - Morning, Mr Blatter.
- We are asking you to resign. - I refuse.
This was commissioned by Sepp Blatter about Sepp Blatter, United Passions.
[Hill] That media manufacturer,
that campaign where you're creating quote machines,
you're creating sources and institutions that can divert the attention,
the denial machine was built in that way.
[Infantino] When it comes to the situation in Qatar in particular,
I think we need to be fair there as well
and admit that a lot of progress has happened.
[Szymanski] It's really, really hard to separate out in many cases
what's true from what's false.
It's really very easy to be seeing things online,
share them without checking that they are true,
and then, you know, you may have ended up sharing something false.
But there are also outfits that are working very hard
to separate out the false information from what is true.
The ability of FIFA
to turn its back on political issues may be changing
in the light of changes in technology and the emergence of social media.
So it seems to me that smartphones in many ways
opened up the political Pandora's box, as it were,
and I think it's going to prove very hard for them to close that in the future.
It's hard to hide wrongness now, isn't it?
It's really difficult, because people will find you and people will expose you.
Some are referring to the conflict in Ukraine as the first TikTok war.
[Szymanski] With Ukraine, because of social media,
we saw immediately what the Russians were doing.
Their lies were immediately exposed for what they were
and the rest of the world was outraged.
As in all wars on all continents, innocent people are being killed
in meaningless fights for power.
Initially, FIFA hesitated. International pressure forced real action.
FIFA and UEFA have suspended all Russian teams
from global competitions until further notice.
[woman] I fear our stadiums will be empty in the future
if we overlook the urgency of the current moment.
[Goldblatt] This notion of sport and politics not mixing
has just worn precariously thin.
[Jennings] All you can do in these circumstances
is stand up for what you think is right.
But you have to do it. Democracy is of the people.
[reporter] They say if you wanna help, don't just send food,
because they have a lot of things.
This is one of our friends we've been playing soccer with all morning.
[Wright Thompson] Soccer, the game, is the most democratic thing in the world.
And FIFA more and more
seems to only appeal to countries run by autocrats.
[Szymanski] The way FIFA is run is in some ways
a reflection of the way we run our planet.
If we could do that well, if we could do it in a way that would set a good example,
that might actually give people more optimism more than any other world leader.
[Wright Thompson] Andrew did this for 20 years with these people.
The fact that this fight goes on without him is beautiful
and a giant "fuck you" to people in power
who think that they don't answer to anyone,
because there's always an Andrew Jennings out there stacking up paper
that one day will be your epitaph.
[upbeat music]
[singing in Portuguese]
[newsreader] Today Blatter insisted that he is clean.
I am not speaking about FIFA. I am not speaking about corruption.
I am speaking about me. Voilà. That's it.
And I have done nothing wrong.
[♪ The Black Keys: "For The Love Of Money"]
♪ For the love of money ♪
♪ We would do most anything ♪
♪ Anything ♪
♪ For a taste of honey ♪
♪ We would do it all again ♪
♪ All again, yeah ♪
♪ We got tall, tall buildings ♪
♪ We got streets of gold ♪
♪ Cheats and liars Our friends get old ♪
♪ Bright, bright diamonds that shine like shame ♪
♪ Green, green acres and God's good name ♪
♪ For the love of money ♪
♪ We would sell our very souls ♪
♪ Goodness knows ♪
♪ Start acting funny ♪
♪ Do anything that we're told ♪
♪ That we're told, yeah ♪
♪ We got fools with britches getting fat on lies ♪
♪ Nothing but trouble here in paradise ♪
♪ Deal's in the making You just name your price ♪
♪ If your soul's for sale You just name your vice ♪
♪ Don't need to tell you that money can buy you love ♪
♪ Love ♪
♪ Once you get money Then you'll never have enough ♪
♪ No ♪
♪ For the love of money ♪
♪ We will climb the highest hill ♪
♪ Yes, we will ♪
♪ Turn your back on Buddy ♪
♪ For a greenback dollar bill ♪
♪ Dollar bill, yeah ♪
♪ Love of money ♪
♪ Love of money, yeah ♪
♪ Love of money ♪
♪ Love of money, yeah ♪
♪ Love of money ♪
♪ Love of money, yeah ♪
♪ Love of money ♪
♪ Love of money, yeah ♪
SUBTITLING: Dubbing Brothers
♪ Love of money ♪
♪ Love of money, yeah ♪