KEIR RADNEDGE in SAO PAULO: All national football associations are to cash in on a ‘bonus’ of $750,000 because of FIFA’s success in driving up the value of the World Cup.

In South Africa, four years ago, it was president Sepp Blatter who made the happy announcement to FIFA Congress but this time around he handed responsibility to finance director Markus Kuttner.

Each national association will receive an ‘extra success premium’ of £250,000 now with a further $500,000 to follow next January; the six confederations will each receive £2.5m plus a further £4.5m.

The fact that a bonus was in the offing was no secret: Blatter had made a point of raising the expectations of each confederation in his addresses to them all over the previous two days.

He had included the ‘news’ in speeches in which he had also said that he intended to stand again for a further four-year term as president of FIFA. No-one within the confederations could have missed the connection even though it was unstated.

Accusations

However, within the formality of congress it was Kuttner who had the responsibility of delivering the announcement and specifying the sums – thus freeing Blatter from any accusations of political impropriety.

Finance chairman Julio Grondona from Argentina, FIFA’s senior vice-president, reported a $72m surplus last year with $1.432 billion reserves in bank, some 20 times more than two decades ago.

In 1995-1998 FIFA had $257m in revenue which had risen, for the 2015-2018 period, to projected revenue of $5bn. Some $14m had been invested in development in 1995  and this has increased to $900m , a 64-times increase.

As Kuttner said: “The year 2013 can be considered as having been very succssful in particular from a financial perspective.”

##############