Another scandal rocks the world of Football: UEFA accused of corruption in the run up to Euro 2012
First it was FIFA being shaken by a newspaper’s undercover report about two members of its bidding committee asking for bribes to secure their vote and now it is UEFA which is being accused of foul play. UEFA, it seems, has been accused of taking bribes
to award the Euro 2012 tournament to Poland and Ukraine. These are very serious allegations and UEFA has decided to play hardball and is demanding evidence. Like the allegations and undercover operation that exposed the corruption in FIFA’s bidding committee,
this latest attack on the sport of football’s second biggest governing body is a cause for serious concern.
UEFA, or the Union of European Football Associations as it is infrequently called, is the governing body for the sport of football in Europe. The large governing body of football runs national and club level matches and tournaments in the countries that
come under it as well as controlling the prize money and television rights to those matches and tournaments. UEFA is one of the six bodies that come under FIFA and it is the biggest in terms of wealth and dominance. The governing body was set up in 1954 in
Basel, Switzerland and was formed as a result of discussions between the French, Italian and Belgian football associations at the time. UEFA over its history has had a few clashes with the EU over television rights and compliance with European law. The allegations
mentioned above do not bode well for the large association.
The story that is so troubling in this regard relates to a former Cyprus football official named Spyros Marangos, who has claimed that money exchanged hands before the host venue for the Euro 2012 tournament was given to Poland and Ukraine. He is basically
claiming that someone from the football associations of Poland and Ukraine bribed UEFA officials in order to secure the venue of the tournament in 2012 to be held in the two countries. This is a very serious allegation and has led to an angry rebuttal from
the large European football association.
UEFA are demanding proof that the alleged bribery took place and they want to see hard evidence of the claims made by Mr. Marangos by the 27th of October. If they do not receive the proof, they will sue the former official for defamation and slander.
Marangos probably did not realise that UEFA would take such a huge stand after he made the remarks to a German newspaper a few days ago. Mr. Marangos used to be the treasurer for the Cyprus football association and he had been trying to warn UEFA about the
alleged bribery he had seen for the last two years but his message had fallen on deaf ears. He is glad that they are doing something about it now and he says he will provide them with the proof very soon.
The Cypriot’s allegations come only a few days after FIFA was rocked by an undercover report by the Sunday Times which apparently exposed two officials asking for large sums of money to effectively sell their vote for the 2018 World Cup host nation to the
reporters. The two FIFA committee members at the heart of this saga were Amos Adamu, who is a Nigerian board member of the FIFA Executive Committee and Reynald Temarii who is also the president of the Oceania Football Confederation. Both these officials for
FIFA were involved in the bidding process and they were approached by a group of journalists posing as a group of American lobbyists trying to get the World Cup 2018 to go to America. Both of them had asked for cash payments to buy their vote and they have
both been suspended by FIFA.
Both these incidents show us that the world of football is not as clean as we wish it to be. Dodgy practices do take place in almost every sport in the world and when there is a lot of money involved then things can get ugly. Hopefully these new allegations
will turn out to be false and if they do turn out to be true then it is hoped that UEFA takes appropriate action to stamp out corruption once and for all.
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