From awarding Qatar World Cup to criminal proceedings against Blatter: Timeline of FIFA scandal

Key dates in the world football corruption scandal after it was announced Friday that FIFA president Sepp Blatter was facing criminal proceedings:

- 2 December 2010: FIFA awards the 2018 World Cup to Russia – with England last in the vote – and the 2022 tournament to Qatar ahead of the United States, South Korea and Australia. A FIFA evaluation report had said a World Cup in Qatar in June-July would be a “potential health risk for players, officials, the FIFA family and spectators.” Six FIFA executive committee members were suspended one month before the vote following a report by British newspaper the Sunday Times that they offered to sell World Cup votes for cash. 

- 1 June 2011: Sepp Blatter is returned for fourth term as president and vows a reform agenda. FIFA had launched an inquiry into alleged illegal payments one month before his election. 

- 23 June 2012: FIFA banned Mohamed bin Hammam, a former FIFA president from Qatar, for life for misconduct. After appealing to the international sports arbitration court and then being suspended again, Hamman resigns all positions in December 2012.

- 30 April 2013: The FIFA ethics committee says Joao Havelange and former executive committee members Ricardo Teixeira and Nicolas Leoz accepted illegal payments from collapsed sports marketing company ISL. Blatter is cleared of any misconduct. 

- 6 May 2013: FIFA’s ethics committee suspends Chuck Blazer, former general secretary of CONCACAF, for ethics breaches. Blazer had by then been working undercover for US anti-corruption investigators for two years. 

- 17 December 2014: Former US attorney Michael Garcia resigns as head of FIFA’s investigatory body in protest at the handling of his report into corruption. A summary released by Hans Joachim Eckert, head of FIFA’s adjudicatory chamber, cleared Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing in their World Cup bids and said there should be no new vote. Garcia said the summary gave “incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions” in his full report. 

- 27 May 2015: Police raid a Zurich hotel on the eve of a FIFA Congress and arrest seven top football officials including two FIFA vice presidents. The seven are among 14 people wanted in the United States where Attorney General Loretta Lynch said an investigation had uncovered decades of bribery in world football amounting to more than $150 million. Federal racketeering charges are unveiled and FIFA executive members accused of taking bribes from sports marketing companies and buying and selling votes for South Africa to get the 2010 World Cup. 

- 29 May 2015: The 79-year-old Blatter is reelected for a fifth term as FIFA president, beating Prince Ali bin Al Hussein by 133 votes to 77 in the second round of voting. “I’m not perfect. Nobody is perfect. But we will do a good job together,” he told the Congress. 

- 2 June 2015: Just four days after his election triumph – but with the corruption storm still roaring – Blatter says he will organise a new election to choose a new president. “I don’t feel I have a mandate from the entire world of football,” Blatter said of his stunning change of heart. 

- 15 July 2015: Switzerland hands over Jeffrey Webb, one of the seven detained FIFA suspects, to the United States. The deposed FIFA vice president and president of CONCACAF, the North and Central American football confederation, is accused of taking bribes for television contracts for football tournaments. He made his first court appearance in New York on Saturday.

- 17 September 2015: Switzerland rules that former FIFA vice president Eugenio Figueredo should be extradited to the US, the first suspect facing a forced transfer in the corruption case. Figueredo, a Uruguayan national, was charged by the US justice department with using his influence to solicit millions of dollars worth of bribes from sports marketing firms. 

- 17 September 2015 FIFA suspends secretary general Jerome Valcke over misconduct allegations and places him under investigation.

The allegations, denied by 54-year-old Valcke, were made by a consultant at a company that struck a deal with FIFA to sell tickets for the 2014 World Cup but the contract was cancelled. 

The Frenchman, who was Blatter’s right-hand man since 2007, is alleged to be the beneficiary of an agreement to sell the tickets at inflated prices.

- 18 September 2015 Valcke denies “fabricated and outrageous” allegations that led to his suspension, his US-based lawyer says. 

“Jerome Valcke unequivocally denies the fabricated and outrageous accusations by Benny Alon of alleged wrongdoing in connection with the sale of World Cup tickets,” a statement from New York attorney Barry Berke said.

- 23 September 2015: The Swiss Federal Office of Justice authorises the extradition of Venezuelan FIFA official Rafael Esquivel to face corruption charges in the United States.

- 24 September 2015: Swiss prosecutors say FIFA agree to hand over the emails of Valcke.

Access to the emails was demanded by Switzerland’s Attorney General Michael Lauber.

- 25 September 2015: Criminal proceedings are opened against FIFA chief Sepp Blatter, on suspicion that he misappropriated funds and violated his duties as the head of world football’s governing body. 

Blatter is suspected of “disloyal payment” to UEFA head Michel Platini.

“Mr. Joseph Blatter is suspected of a disloyal payment of 2.0 million Swiss francs ($2.04 million, 1.8 million euros) to Michel Platini, President of Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), at the expense of FIFA,” it said in a statement, adding that the payment had been executed in February 2011, and had allegedly been made “for work performed between January 1999 and June 2002.”

Former FIFA executive Jack Warner will face an extradition hearing in December after authorities in Trinidad and Tobago quash attempts to have the case against him tossed out. 

Warner, 72, was indicted in May by a US grand jury on 12 charges of wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering over the escalating scandal at FIFA.

AFP