New French report links Teixeira with $22m mystery cash transfer from Qatar
PARIS: New evidence of links between former Brazilian football supremo Ricardo Teixeira and a ‘benefactor’ in Qatar has been uncovered by the French news outlet Mediapart writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
Teixeira, wanted in the United States over the $200m FIFAGate corruption investigation, was a member of the executive committee of world football federation FIFA which awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hostings to Russia and Qatar respectively in December 2010.
The Qatari organisers of the 2022 World Cup and the original bid have always denied wrongdoing and have been cleared of suspicion by a FIFA inquiry.
According to Mediapart, the FBI and Brazilian judicial authorities are investigating the manner in which a subsidiary of the Crédit Mutuel bank was used to transfer $22m from a Qatar source to the former president of the Brazilian CBF.
Brazilian and US prosecutors have obtained bank statements which indicate that Teixeira once held an account at Pasche Monaco – a Swiss- based facility controlled by Credit Mutuel.
A payment of $22m from the Qatari group Ghanim Bin Saad Al-Saad & Sons Group (CSSG) was made to this account in January 2011, shortly after the World Cup awards.
Mediapart claimed that CSSG, “led by businessman Ghanim Bin Saad Al-Saad, is at the heart of suspicions of corruption on [this] award.”
Teixeira is not the only former FIFA exco under suspicion concerning the monies.
Cash distribution
Mediapart stated: “In early 2013, several transfers were . . . issued the same day from his account, to individuals designated as ” Warner Bros ” [Jack Warner was then president of the Confederation of Central and North American Confederation] , ” Mohammed ” [Mohamed Bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation] and ” Leoz ” [Nicolas Leoz, president of the South American federation] .”
According to Mediapart, Crédit Mutuel said its subsidiary had no reason to question the credibility of the bank transfers.
It has been claimed by media in Brazil that bank executives who later reported suspicions had been forbidden to register any football connections to the holder of the account and were dismissed in 2013.
The CSSG group had supported the organisationh of friendly match in Doha between Brazil and Argentina two weeks before the FIFA vote in December 2010.
They said Teixeira had visited the bank accompanied by João Havelange, the long-time former FIFA president and an employee of its São Paulo branch.
Investigations in France involve the complex purchase of five per cent of the Veolia services group in 2010 by the Qatari Diar fund.
#############
