ZURICH: The Brazilian World Cup watches saga has been resolved by the FIFA ethics committee – with a donation of 48 timepieces to the streetfootballworld organisation.

Trouble began at the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil when the hosting CBF gave a luxury watch to each member of the FIFA executive committee and to chairmen of all the competing federations.

Several members of the exco queried the value of the gift and reported it to Michael Garcia, the United States attorney who was then the ethics investigator.

He deemed the watches as too extravagant to be considered mere diplomatic gifts and demanded that they be submitted to his office – an order which upset several exco members.

Donations

The ethics committee’s investigatory chamber has now revealed that of the initially intended 65 watches offered by the CBF several officials had not received a watch.

Hence 48 watches had been returned and Garcia’s successor, Cornel Borbély, has now donated them to streetfootballworld.

An ethics committee statement added: “[The organisation] will directly invest all resources generated through the sale of the watches into initiatives across Brazil that use football to drive social change.

“The investigatory chamber of the Ethics Committee considers the matter to be closed.”

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