JAMES M DORSEY —- Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa’s campaign for the presidency of FIFA will serve as a litmus test for newly introduced integrity checks on world football election contenders.

The Asian Football Confederation president has consistently, like other members of his ruling family, refused to respond to allegations by human rights groups that he was associated with the detention and abuse of scores of sports executives and athletes, including national team players, alleged to have participated in a 2011 popular uprising that was brutally squashed.

Sheikh Salman also played a key role in squashing a 2012 independent audit of AFC finances that raised serious questions about possible bribery, non-transparency, tax evasion, and sanctions busting in the awarding to Singapore-based World Sport Group of a $1bn master rights agreement.

Sheikh Salman: AFC president and FIFA vice-president

The audit by a PricewaterhouseCooper that constituted the basis for FIFA’s banning for life of former AFC president and FIFA executive committee member Mohammed Bin Hammam counselled the AFC to seek legal advice on potential civil and criminal charges and review its contract with Singapore-based World Sport Group.

Restructuring plan

AFC officials deny that Sheikh Salman or the organisation buried the audit. In a new twist, the officials recently disclosed that in addition to the audit, PwC had also delivered a report on proposed restructuring of the AFC. The officials said those recommendations had largely been implemented.

In a reflection of the AFC’s lack of transparency and Sheikh Salman’s management style, the disclosure was the first time in three years since the audit that the AFC referred to a second PwC report.

The report was never made public nor was it clear what PwC recommendations were implemented. Disclosure of the existence of the report moreover did not explain why the recommendations of the audit have been ignored.

Sheikh Salman’s secretive management style bodes ill for reform of FIFA should he win the February 26 presidential election.

This style has been evident further in current AFC negotiations with potential marketing partners.

The AFC has denied reports that it was negotiating an extension of its controversial WSG contract. Officials said the AFC was talking to various companies and had yet to take a decision.

The PwC audit criticised the AFC for failing to put the contract to tender, a suggestion Sheikh Salman appears to be studiously ignoring.

Officials’ departures

The only known time that the AFC took action with regard to the audit – besides honouring FIFA’s banning of Bin Hammam – was earlier this year when it effectively fired its general secretary, Dato’ Alex Soosay, for seeking to destroy documents relevant to the audit.

Even then, the AFC portrayed Soosay’s dismissal as a voluntary resignation even if his departure followed disclosure by this blog and The Malay Mail of a tape in which financial director Bryan Kuan Wee Hoong testified that Soosay had asked him to destroy documents.

Kuan, since disclosure of the tape, has also left the AFC.

Media pressure

The fact that it took media pressure for Sheikh Salman and the AFC to act three years after delivery of the audit says much about the Bahraini’s management style.

The PwC audit suggested that Soosay had authorised many of the payments on which it cast legal doubt.

PwC’s report said: “Our transaction review revealed that items sampled were, in most cases, authorised by the general secretary or deputy general secretary and the director of finance.

“As signatories these parties hold accountability for the authorisation of these transactions.  We also note the internal audit and finance committees were aware of this practice.”

Seat of power: The Home of FIFA in Zurich

The AFC and Sheikh Salman’s lack of transparency with regard to the allegations of his involvement in the arrest and torture of sports officials and athletes in 2011 as well as in his management of the Asian sports group contrasts starkly with efforts to clean up football governance that have led to the arrest in Switzerland at the request of the US Justice Department of seven senior officials as well as the suspension of FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini.

Investigation

The lack of transparency is also notable given suggestions that the AFC may be on the radar of the investigation because of Bin Hammam, who is believed to have been named as an unidentified co-conspirator in US indictments, and the AFC’s contract with WSG.

WSG has been linked to Traffic USA, a subsidiary of the Brazilian sports marketing company, which is among those indicted in the US.

In 2005 WSG acquired the international broadcasting rights of the Gold Cup and CONCACAF Champions League operated by CONCACAF (the football confederation for Caribbean, central and north America) together with Traffic.

Traffic´s owner, Brazilian businessman Jose Hawilla, is cooperating with the FBI in its FIFA investigation, a lawyer for told The Wall Street Journal.

Under the agreement, Hawilla has admitted to crimes including money laundering, fraud, extortion, and has agreed to return $151m in funds.

Sheikh Salman’s refusal to denounce the alleged abuses of human rights or to discuss the allegations against him – which he has always denied – are all the starker given the fact that an independent fact-finding commission made up of international rights lawyers that was endorsed by the Bahrain government concluded in November 2011 that those detained during the uprising had suffered systematic abuse.

Among them were two of Bahrain’s top footballers.

No apology

The report created a basis on which Sheikh Salman could have been more forthcoming about what happened in 2011 and his alleged role in the events.

Instead, Sheikh Salman has said there was no reason to apologise to the players because it was an issue for politicians, not his football federation.

Sheikh Salman, according to information submitted to British prosecutors, chaired a committee established in 2011 by a decree by a relative, Prince Nasser bin Hamad al Khalifa, head of Bahrain’s Supreme Council for Youth and Sport as well as its Olympic Committee and fourth son of King Hamad, ordering that measures be taken against those guilty of insulting Bahrain and its leadership.

Prince Nasser formed the committee after an earlier royal decree had declared a state of emergency.

The royal decree allowed the Bahrain military to crack down on the protests and establish military courts, according to the information provided to the prosecutor.

Tarnished image

Critics charge that, since the quashing of the 2011 popular revolt, sports have largely served as attempts to bolster Bahrain’s tarnished image.

“There are no sports since the uprising; matches serve as PR to show that Bahrain is back to normal,” said Faisal Hayyat, a Bahraini sports journalist and activist – an assertion that was also reflected in Sheikh Salman’s decision to hold AFC’s annual congress earlier this year in Bahrain rather than at its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

FIFA has yet to detail what integrity checks of its executives and presidential candidates will entail.

Evaluation of Sheikh Salman’s presidential candidacy is likely to put the integrity of those checks to the test.

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James M Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title.

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