FIFA to recover 2010 World Cup bribery monies

World football’s governing body, FIFA, is seeking to recover $10 million bribe paid to officials for the 2010 World Cup.

The body on Wednesday demanded the claims in damages from officials indicted in a recent report.

The decision comes after an inquiry last year openly accused South Africa of paying bribes to secure votes for the World Cup, which it hosted.

World football is at the centre of multiple inquiries with some officials including Sepp Blatter falling off.

FIFA claims officials “betrayed their duties and sold their powers to the highest bidder.”

“The defendants grossly abused their positions of trust to enrich themselves and have deeply tarnished the FIFA brand and impaired FIFA’s ability to use its resources for positive actions throughout the world,” the document said. Ex-officials who have pleaded guilty have already agreed to pay more than $190 million in forfeiture, according to U.S. authorities.

“These funds should be used to compensate the victims of the defendants’ crimes, particularly FIFA and its member associations and confederations,” FIFA said.

Many of the bribes they add were paid for lucrative television and sponsorship deals in Central and South America.

World Cup bids have also faced mounting scrutiny.

South Africa has strongly denied paying a bribe to secure the 2010 World Cup.
FIFA is also seeking to re-claim an additional figure of $28.2 million for payments to corrupt officials.

FIFA seeks for:

$28.2 million for years of payments, including bonuses, flights and daily expenses, to officials it now says are corrupt.

$10 million for the “theft” of money that FIFA officials transferred as bribes to then-executive committee members to vote for South Africa as 2010 World Cup host.

“Substantial” cost of legal bills since separate U.S. and Swiss federal probes of corruption in international soccer were revealed last May.

Damages for harm to its reputation, plus other bribes and kickbacks for media rights to non-FIFA competitions but “which were made possible because of the value of the FIFA brand”.