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New Bribe Scandal At FIFA! Son Of Scandal-tainted Amos Adamu Snared In Alleged Pay-To-Play Purchase Of 2022 World Cup

November 18, 2012

A payment of $1 million to the son of Fifa executive committee member Amos Adamu appears to suggest a hefty bribe by the Gulf state of Qatar to win the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup.

A payment of $1 million to the son of Fifa executive committee member Amos Adamu appears to suggest a hefty bribe by the Gulf state of Qatar to win the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup.

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The payment was revealed to Fifa by The Sunday Times of the UK.  In the documents compiled by the Times, the Qatar bid team offered the sum to Samson Adamu, 26, son of disgraced former Fifa member, Amos Adamu.

The money supposedly would fund a dinner and workshop on the eve of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, though it actually cost a fraction of the money offered.

Samson's father, Amos Adamu, was one of Fifa's most senior figures to ever be caught and punished for bribery. In a sensational case, he received a 3-year ban and a 10,000 Swiss franc fine after he was taped asking for $800,000 for African votes on the World Cup's 2018 venue. An appeal by Adamu to the sentence was lost this year.



Ali al-Thawadi, deputy chief executive of the Qatar bid, allegedly brokered the latest deal, months before the decision was made on who would host the 2022 Cup.

Al-Thawadi initially denied knowledge of the offer but Qatar lawyers later acknowledged there had been discussions and a contract had been drawn up, but said the team had later backed out of the deal after considering the “relevant Fifa rules,” according to the Sunday Times which broke the blockbuster story.

World Cup bidders are prohibited from entering into any financial relationship with relatives of the 24 Fifa executive committee voters.

Fifa said it had “immediately” passed the Sunday Times evidence to Michael Garcia, its chief ethics investigator, for examination.

Invoices for the glittering 2010 African Legends’ gala dinner, seen by the UK newspaper indicate that the event cost about $220,000, much less than the $1 million Samson’s company had received to organize it.

The oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar, a tiny nation of 1.6m people, won the vote for 2022 with the support of 14 executive committee members despite having no football tradition and the prospect of temperatures of up to 50C during the summer, when the competition will be held.

Its bid committee vastly outspent every competitor in its campaign and Jerome Valcke, the Fifa general secretary, admitted in a leaked email that Qatar had “bought the WC ”. He later said he was referring to the vast amount of money spent on marketing the bid.

This newspaper wrote to the Commons culture, media and sport select committee last year to report that it had also filmed three former Fifa grandees claiming Qatar was offering large sums of cash to African voters. The allegations are denied by Qatar.

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