ZURICH: Sepp Blatter is being investigated over other suspect hand-outs to FIFA bosses similar to the ‘disloyal payment’ to Michel Platini writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
Blatter, president of the world federation until a successor is elected next Friday, was banned from football for eight years before Christmas for authorising a ‘verbal agreement’ payment of SFr2m to the Frenchman for work undertaken nine years earlier.
Media reports in Switzerland and Germany have suggested that further disbursements are being investigated.
One in particular concerns a payment of $100,000 to Vyacheslav Koloskov, the former head of the Soviet and then Russian federation.
Koloskov was an important political figure within FIFA, holding the statutory Soviet vice-presidency, between 1980 and 1996. Domestically he was long-time head of both the football and ice hockey federations.
He remained on the FIFA exco until 1998 when the Soviet vice-presidency was scrapped only to re-emerge as one of the leaders of the Russian bid to win host rights to the 2018 World Cup.
Koloskov also played a central role, during the FIFA presidency of Joao Havelange, in ensuring that the other Warsaw Pact federations toed Moscow’s line within the world game.
The SuddeutscheZeitung has reported that Blatter authorised a retrospective payment to Koloskov of $100,000 for the period 1998 to 2000 even though he was no longer an exco member.
A subsequent transfer of a further $125,000 was apparently to reward Koloskov for his work as an adviser to the Goal development programme.
Blatter had won the FIFA presidential election in 1998 with significant support from Russia and its neighbours.
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