TI: Has corruption become more of an issue for sport associations in the past years?

JW: Yes. The most important reason is that global sport activities are a multi-billion dollar business. But this should not imply that there is no personal responsibility anymore.

TI: Does corruption relate exclusively to football, or is it a more general problem? Are there differences between sports and their propensity for corruption? What accounts for this?

JW: It is definitely a general problem. Corruption is an in-depth problem of the sport system, like doping. But most officials are ignoring it. In my books The Olympic Bog and Corruption in Sports , I have tried to describe the “family” system in global sport, with its special laws and worldwide tax exemptions.

Just a few examples: senior officials of world sport bodies are often treated like top diplomats or even head of states; they demand such treatment in negotiations regarding the organisation of big events. They also demand tax exemptions for big events like the FIFA [ International Football Federation] World Cup – and they get whatever they ask for from bidding countries.

Corruption in sport is too often discussed only as a phenomenon of players and officials. It is much more. The really big cases have to do with big international crime - drug trafficking, money laundering, political corruption. Billions of dollars are lost to companies connected to the sport system. With the many competitions on the field, with the many bidding competitions for the organisation of prestigious events and lucrative marketing rights, with diplomatic status for officials and lack of border controls, the system promotes the opportunity to do dirty business.

TI: How have you uncovered corruption in sport? Have players or referees talked to you about corruption before their involvement was known?

JW: For me it was never a question of players and referees. The topics I try to uncover are much bigger than corruption on the pitch. The big corruption, the big international crime, is using the sporting system as a money making business. International sport has become a global business, and one cannot fight it alone. Over the last 15 years, dozens of hard working journalists around the world have created a network. The author Andrew Jennings from the UK, who has just published the book Foul!, which is critical of FIFA, was the driving force; others have followed him.

We need more cooperation between international networks like Play the Game, Transparency International and others. We must use new techniques in the fight against corruption to connect people from different parts of the world, from different cultures, with different knowledge and different jobs in the sport system, to create a goodwill network.

TI: Professional sport is a huge economic area. How does corruption in sport differ from corruption in other areas of business?

JW: If I compare my own experiences in sport with other analyses of corruption I have seen, written by prosecutors, scientists and NGOs like Transparency International, I think that we find the same mechanisms. The global sport business, combining sport, politics, media, trade, production and commerce, is a wonderful ground for cheaters at all levels. Sadly no law against corruption in sport exists.

If you look at the many international declarations against corruption -conventions of the United Nations, the European Union and the Americas, for example - they have targeted national governments and companies at all levels, but nothing is binding and no one is responsible for sport. That is one of the biggest problems. Politicians worldwide provide the system with special laws and exceptions when it comes to bidding processes for hosting events like the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup. But there is a huge lack of law and no independent controlling system. Why? Many sport associations act like multinational companies. Why should they be excluded from anti-corruption rules or oversight?

TI: How big are annual profits from professional sport?

JW: While I can’t give an overall figure, I do know a bit about the finances of FIFA, the International Olympic Committee and others. Billions of dollars are circulated each year in the sport industry, and a huge part of it is public money. Sport officials and politicians argue that sponsors pay most of the cost of big events. That is definitely not true.

One example: The official organisational budget for the World Cup in 2006 in Germany is about €430 million, and nearly 50 per cent is financed through the ticketing programme. But that 430 million is just the basic organisational budget, without taking stadiums or other infrastructure into account. Together with some students from Leipzig University, I have tried to compile the real amount of public money spent for the World Cup, including things like tax exemptions for FIFA. We came to about €6.5 billion. Of course this is a “virtual” amount and part of it is not used for the World Cup. But there is a big difference between this number and the stated €430 million.

My question is why neither FIFA, the local organising committee, nor the German government provide the worldwide audience with all the facts about money spent on the World Cup? Why couldn’t German taxpayers be informed of the financial details of all public accounts at a special website? There is a big lack of transparency. It is always the same: bidding and organising processes of the Olympic Games or big world championships are not transparent enough; there are constantly cases of corruption.

The Olympic Committee officially differentiates between its operational budget, in most cases between US $1.6 and $2 billion, and the non-operational budget. It is always controversial and opaque which parts of the infrastructure costs are to be in which budget. One can estimate a non-operational budget - more or less a taxpayer’s budget - at around US $10 billion, such as Athens in 2004, or even much more, like Beijing in 2008. Of course, part of the non-operational money will be used for infrastructure, which affects more than just sport. But there is almost no transparency in the discussion. Instead, there is secrecy and a lack of control, and that is always the first danger sign of corruption.

TI: When public servants ask for bribes, they often argue that they need the extra money to supplement their dismal salaries. Is this the same with sport? Would bigger salaries help erase the potential for corrupt behaviour?

JW: Perhaps generally, this could help in the fight against corruption, but it is surely not the most important way for top executives of international federations and world governing bodies in sport. The sporting system shows very clearly that people are always hungry, too hungry: the executive committee of FIFA recently doubled their own annual remuneration and established a pension system. Did that prevent Jack Warner, the FIFA vice president, from selling prestigious and very expensive World Cup tickets through his family company?

TI: Why do so many cases of corruption result in so few convictions?

JW: As I said before, it is a question of law – or rather, a lack of law. Look at all the reports of the Salt Lake City Olympic scandal. It was a clear case of corruption by TI’s definition – but the responsible officials in the U.S. were released by the judge. I have no reason to think that the number of undetected cases in sport would be much smaller than in surrounding society - at least 95 percent. We are talking about the tip of the iceberg.

TI: You wrote a book on FIFA some years ago. What is your impression of FIFA’s public commitments to increase transparency and fight corruption?

JW: In FIFA’s business, it is hard to tell the difference between “transparency” and PR [ public relations]. While there might be a new policy on transparency - they now have a financial media conference every year - many important questions are still unresolved. Look at the case of alleged bribing of sport officials, including football officials, connected to the former leading sport marketing company ISL [ International Sports Leisure].
The case is still under investigation in Switzerland.
FIFA and ISL were always well connected; FIFA officials and ISL defendants remain well connected.

One big problem is the misuse of FIFA funds worldwide. I like TI’s definition of corruption very much - the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. In this sense, a huge percentage of FIFA politics could be called corruption, despite the fact that the judicial system clears the officials again and again. One should not forget that FIFA operates within its strange own system of law: we don’t go to strangers, says Mr Blatter, If we do have problems in our family, we solve the problems in the family.

TI: Can politics legally influence the organisational structure of sport federations to decrease their vulnerability to corruption, or must change come from public pressure for reform?

JW: I do not have much hope that governments and politicians connected with sport federations and officials are capable and willing to act in a fundamentally new way. I am deeply convinced that the most important pressure has to come from the media: from people who want to be real journalists, and from non-governmental organisations. They have to put their forces together. One of my suggestions is to organise a worldwide Anti-Corruption Congress on Sport, like the World Anti-Doping Conferences in 1999 and 2003.

TI: How developed is the democratic culture in international sport federations and how much does this influence their vulnerability to corruption?

JW: In many federations, there is almost no democratic culture. What one may clearly judge as corruption according to the TI definition is common behaviour in many areas of sport. One has to understand the “republic of cousins”, the deeply and darkly connected networks within the so-called “families” of officials who have had decades to create such informal measures. Is there self reflection? How great is the ability of self detection? We cannot discuss corruption in sport only as an economic phenomenon. One has to understand the “very special democracy”, the personal and cultural connections as well.

The culture of corruption on every level lies in the sporting system itself. There are too many basic points which support corrupt behaviour in sport. And it is not just players, referees or officials who are corrupt. There is corruption in sport journalism and sport science.

TI: Are you aware of any initiatives to reduce corruption in sport? What would help?

JW: I can’t think of any initiatives that come from inside the sport business. Yes, there are some ethical rules in different federations. But I think the Olympic system needs to host a World Anti-Corruption Agency like the World Anti-Doping Agency, with a world anti-corruption code. Sufficient measures have to be implemented in the Olympic Charter. The Olympic world needs a kind of supervisory council, with an important role for non-governmental organisations. I personally back the joint paper between Play the Game and Transparency International that was released in November 2005. In fact, I was a part of the working group. It is a beginning. I do think tools such as the Corruption Perceptions Index, Bribe Payers Index and Global Corruption Barometer can and should be worked out for the Olympic world. Corruption indices and things like blacklists are definitely necessary.

There are many ways to work for more transparency in sport. Inspired by Play the Game, some journalists founded a sport network in Germany in December 2005. Our goals are to work for better quality in journalism, to strength research and to combine the knowledge of journalists, scientists, sport officials and others.

Biography

Jens Weinreich, sport editor at the Berliner Zeitung, is an investigative journalist and author who specialises in the international politics of sport and the influence of organised crime in sport. He covers the Olympics and world championships in all major sports. Weinreich won the 2005 Wächterpreis, the prestigious German award for investigative journalism, for his work during the Leipzig bid for the Olympic Games 2012. He has written several books about corruption in sport and worked as director of the international TV production “The Untouchable”, a portrait of FIFA President Joseph Blatter, broadcasted in over 20 His latest book is Korruption im Sport.