The Fifa executive committee member who kick-started the bribery scandal that threw the world governing body into crisis has dismissed claims that his comments were part of an American conspiracy to re-open the disputed 2022 World Cup bidding process.
The US official Chuck Blazer, who alleged that his Concacaf president, Jack Warner, had conspired with Sepp Blatter's presidential challenger, Mohamed bin Hammam, to bribe 25 Caribbean football associations with $40,000 (£24,500) each, said claims of a lot were "nonsense".
As the majority of Caribbean Football Union (CFU) members summoned to give evidence by Fifa's independent ethics committee at a three-day tribunal in Miami refused to attend, it is understood the investigation could be widened to encompass other allegations of impropriety.
Blazer said: "To say there is an American conspiracy is nonsense. The only things that were American in this were the $100 bills. I am nothing to do with the investigation. If national associations do not respond to Fifa's summons that's up to Fifa to deal with it."
One Caribbean federation has emailed Fifa to complain that the investigation is "biased" towards the US and has called for the former FBI director Louis Freeh to be replaced as lead investigator.
Sources close to the investigation said those making claims of a US conspiracy to re-open the 2022 World Cup bidding process by undermining Bin Hammam were merely trying to create a diversion.
An email from the secretary of Fifa's ethics committee, Marc Cavaliero, warned the 25 CFU associations that the committee "may draw a negative inference" from a refusal to attend the Miami hearing and reminded them that its statutes placed an obligation of disclosure on them. But reports in the US suggested that up to 20 of the 25 members intended to hold a separate meeting of their own.
There are signs that the divided CFU, which is split between those who blew the whistle on the alleged bribes and those who are continuing to protest the innocence of Warner and Bin Hammam, will splinter further. One CFU chairman has complained to Fifa that the investigation is "tainted and biased and clearly has a US-driven agenda".
The email points out that the former US president Bill Clinton worked on the American 2022 bid during the time Freeh was FBI director, and the main complainants Blazer and the Chicago-based lawyer John Collins are American, as are the investigators with the "interrogation being conducted on American soil". But others point out that Freeh and Clinton were in well-publicised dispute for most of the president's time in office and that Miami is the main transport hub for most countries in the Caribbean, and so the most obvious venue for the interviews.
A dossier of evidence compiled by a US lawyer for Blazer, after he was approached by concerned CFU members after a special meeting held with Bin Hammam in Trinidad on 10 and 11 May, alleged that they were offered $40,000 in $100 bills. The file contained signed affidavits, photographs, text messages and emails. Some of those present insisted that they were not offered any money.
Bin Hammam's withdrawal from the presidential election, hours before he and Warner were provisionally suspended, left Blatter as the only candidate and he was duly re-elected unopposed.
Meanwhile, Fifa has claimed that a whistleblower who could back up The Sunday Times' claims that Qatar 2022 paid $1.5m to two executive committee members made "unacceptable demands" about giving evidence in person.
"The whistleblower asked for conditions that could not possibly be accepted by Fifa," the governing body said. "Among others, the problems were that the whistleblower gave no warranty for the accuracy and correctness of the information he/she was providing, asked for the right to destroy the information at any time and that the information he/she provided not be made public."
Qatar 2022 has vociferously denied any wrongdoing, as have the two Fifa members: Issa Hayatou from Cameroon and Jacques Anouma from the Ivory Coast. Fifa's ethics committee has 56 days to complete its investigation from the date on which Bin Hammam, Warner and two CFU officials were suspended, meaning that it must do so by mid-July.
Holden/Bradley would work great.
