FIFA looks at World Cup bribe claims

LONDON - FIFA said on Sunday it will examine evidence from a British newspaper alleging that two FIFA executive-committee members offered to sell their votes in World Cup bidding.

The Sunday Times filmed Amos Adamu of Nigeria and Oceania Football Confederation president Reynald Temarii of Tahiti asking for money to fund projects. The reporters were posing as lobbyists for a consortium of American companies who wanted to help bring the World Cup back to the United States by winning December’s vote. No money changed hands.

“The Sunday Times report today makes it clear, but it bears emphasis and repeating, that the USA Bid Committee had zero involvement with any aspect of the reporting that resulted in this story,” U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati, chairman of the USA Bid Committee, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

“This is a matter that is totally under the governance of FIFA, and therefore we will have no further comment.”

Adamu and Temarii, who could not be reached for comment, are on the 24-member committee that will hold a secret vote in Zurich in December on who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

“FIFA and the FIFA ethics committee have closely monitored the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups and will continue to do so,” the world football’s governing body said in a statement. “FIFA has already requested to receive all of the information and documents related to this matter, and is awaiting to receive this material.

“In any case, FIFA will immediately analyze the material available and only once this analysis has concluded will FIFA be able to decide on any potential next steps.”

Bidding alongside the U.S. for 2022 are Australia, Japan, South Korea and Qatar. There are four European entrants in the 2018 race, England and Russia, as well as joint bids by Belgium-Holland and Spain-Portugal.

Adamu was filmed telling reporters in London that he wanted $800,000 to build four artificial football pitches in his home country of Nigeria.

When the deal was sealed in Cairo last month, the U.S. was still bidding for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cup, but it announced on Friday that it was withdrawing from the contest for the 2018 edition.

Adamu had offered a “guarantee” that he would vote for the Americans in the 2018 vote, but said they would be his second preference in ’22.

“I’ve already given my word to some other bid,” he was heard saying on the Sunday Times Web site. AP