English Soccer's FA Hires Lawyer to Investigate FIFA Corruption Claims - Bloomberg

English soccer's governing body has hired a senior U.K. lawyer for its own inquiry into allegations of improper conduct made by its former chairman against four members of FIFA's decision-making panel.

David Triesman told a U.K. Parliament panel earlier this week that the men on world soccer's top committee engaged in "improper and unethical" behavior by seeking favors in return for their votes for England to stage the 2018 World Cup. Russia defeated England and three others to win the December vote, with the U.K. entry ousted first after getting just 2 of 22 votes.

The F.A., which is also cooperating with a FIFA inquiry into the claims, has enlisted James Dingemans QC, to look into the evidence behind Triesman's statements and present a report by May 27, four days before FIFA's presidential elections. The report will be made public.

"If Lord Triesman's allegations can't be supported then I suppose they'd die a death," F.A. Chairman David Bernstein told reporters in London today. "Unsupported evidence doesn't get anybody very far."

Triesman was forced to resign from his post after being secretly recorded saying a joint Spanish-Portuguese 2018 bid had colluded with Qatar's offer for the 2022 World Cup to share votes and that Spain would consider stepping down if Russia helped it bribe referees at the 2010 World Cup. None of the allegations were proven.

Improper Demands

Lawmakers trying to understand why England's 18 million- pound ($29.3 million) campaign, which received the highest technical marks, yielded limited support from the 22 eligible FIFA voters called Triesman to give evidence two days ago. He told them that Jack Warner, a FIFA vice president from Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil's Ricardo Teixeira, Paraguay's Nicolas Leoz and Thailand's Worawi Makudi made improper demands for their votes. Makudi has yet to comment on the allegations; the others have all denied the claims.

FIFA has opened its own inquiry into the allegations and has asked the F.A. to supply any evidence it has. It's also written to the lawmakers asking them to supply information it received from the Sunday Times newspaper that Qatar paid two African committee members $1.5 million each for their votes in its successful bid for the 2022 World Cup. Blatter said the investigations must be completed before his June 1 presidential battle with Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Qatari who heads soccer in Asia.

New Low

FIFA's reputation in England fell to a new low following the World Cup vote. A month before Russia and Qatar won, two members of the FIFA panel were suspended after an investigation into allegations over alleged vote selling. Bernstein said the country may abstain from voting in the presidential election, rather than endorse Blatter's fourth term bid or choose Bin Hammam.

"I don't think an abstention would be pointless," he said. "I think there are three choices and abstention could end up being a very credible choice. But it depends on what happens over the next week and my colleagues views on it."

He conceded that a vote for Blatter wouldn't "go down very well" with the English public.

The F.A. board will announce its intention on May 19.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tariq Panja in London at tpanja@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Elser at celser@bloomberg.net.