Kissinger: close ally of Watergate President in frame to ‘clean-up’ FIFA…

Hunter S Thompson, the counter culture US political journalist, who probably got closer than anyone to the Ex President of the United States, Richard Nixon, wrote an unflinching piece on his funeral for Rolling Stone magazine in 1994, entitled simply, ‘He Was A Crook’.  Of Nixon’s closest personal adviser during the Vietnam era and the subsequent ‘Watergate’ tapes scandal, Henry Kissinger, he wrote:

“It would be easy to forget and forgive Henry Kissinger of his crimes, just as he forgave Nixon. Yes, we could do that — but it would be wrong. Kissinger is a slippery little devil, a world-class hustler with a thick German accent and a very keen eye for weak spots at the top of the power structure. Nixon was one of those, and Super K exploited him mercilessly, all the way to the end.  Kissinger made the Gang of Four complete: Agnew, Hoover, Kissinger and Nixon. A group photo of these perverts would say all we need to know about the Age of Nixon.”

With that in mind, Guardian reporter, Matt Scott on June 2, says Kissinger will be “FIFA’s answer to the corruption problems that have shredded its reputation in recent months.”  This is the same Henry Kissinger who conspired with Nixon to keep the relentless carpet bombing of innocent Cambodian civilians not just a secret from the press, but the rest of Federal intelligence.  Documents falsified, military chiefs completely undermined…we shouldn’t forget the brutalisation of Cambodia opened the door for genocidal maniac Pol Pot to continue his own campaign of doom.

“We’ll do whatever it takes..we’ll kick the shit out of them,” screamed Nixon down the line to Kissinger, imploring him to “think big” on Nuclear in Vietnam, shortly before turning to US TV cameras in the Whitehouse to state categorically that he was not a crook.  Without digressing too far from our central theme, we can all thank intelligence officer Daniel Ellesberg and his close allies, for exposing the whole filthy truth that lead to the eventual “self-impeachment” of one Richard Nixon. Ford was sworn in as President at noon the next day and pardoned the toad, knowing he too would “go to hell” for it.

Fast-forwarding to the present, even the most fanciful sports journalist could not have written this latest chapter in Sepp Blatter’s and FIFA’s current deep-rooted accusations of bribery and corruption.  Rather than turning down the heat on the story, Blatter has turned it up to eleven by announcing his backing of Kissinger as the man to head up his ‘solutions committee’ whose job it will effectively be to open up FIFA to outside scrutiny and rid it of corruption.

The idea of Kissinger and transparency is about as convincing as Nixon’s desperate plea of innocence in light of all the evidence against him.  Not least with all his Nixon Vietnam-era baggage, Kissinger remains a close personal friend to Blatter, so there’s already a major conflict of interest.  The FIFA Family’s feeble attempt at opening up.

So what have the rest of the British media to say:  Simon Jenkins of the Guardian and Evening Standard called Blatter a “villain” and claimed that the whole FIFA system was “corrupt.”  Sitting next to him on the UK politics show, Question Time, was Sunday Express reporter Julia Hartley-Brewer whose reaction to the alleged individual payments of $40,000 to FIFA officials was to say, “I think we should have been paying higher bribes.”  And Brewer likened Blatter’s business deals as the norm in global business, as if that somehow extricated the bastard.  Short-lived Shadow Chancellor, Alan Johnson’s reply could not have been more spinelessly opaque beating his moral chest and relating it to issues like the NHS and the national debt, saying disingenuously, “I can’t get too excited by this…I don’t think it deserved to be top of the news agenda.” His sentiments entirely miss the point.  He was esentially saying that corruption within a billion pound industry, within the most democratic sport in the world, was a small issue.  Don’t ask a narrow-minded postman for his opinions.

The great HS Thompson was not afraid to quote someone else at length if it aided the story at hand, so I won’t be.  As Blatter recently claimed to be the captain of the FIFA ship currently drifting through “troubled waters”, I’ll go out with this, aimed squarely at Nixon but just as relevant to the re-elected FIFA President: “He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him– and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.”

Flying toupees, Triesman, bloody mouths and Caribbean bungs…

As scandal and corruption tears through the heart of football like a filthy wave of effluvium, we look over five of the most popularised sports and pick out the corruption cases that resonate most.

High on rum I remember having a heated debate with a contentious Frenchman called Eric who I thought out of jealousy and cruelty accused our beloved FA Premier League of doping and corruption through to its core. I muttered we had moved beyond that state then I remembered (looked up…) that American Moralist, Christopher Lasch, who I remembered had remembered quoting someone called Cosell in ‘77:  “Sports are not separate and apart from life, a special ‘Wonderland’ where everything is pure and sacred and above criticism, but a business, subject to the same standards and open to the same scrutiny as any other.”

So with a sick and giddy feeling that our beautiful games and physical heroes are no longer beyond the greed, treason and desperation that defeats the rest of us, I decided to take a brief glance at what rats still scurry about under the carpet of sporting officialdom.

Boxing.

Investigative journalist Malcolm ‘Flash’ Gordon’s insightful analysis and continued probing at sleaze inside boxing got him labelled as a “sewer mongrel” and a “beatnik pothead with body odour to boot.”  The kind of labels insider-creeps give to people that do their homework.  Gordon became concerned at the sudden high rankings doled out by Ring magazine “the bible of boxing” for the Don King-run tournament, The United States Boxing Championships (1976).

Hyped up off the back of the original Rocky film, ABC network invested over $1.5m in King’s dubious enterprise.  What King was actually up to was an attempt to sign up every US champion at every class weight to his own exclusive managerial and promotional team.  Fighters like Marvin Hagler refused to take part in such a rigged deal.  Ending up mostly with a bunch of lousy club fighters King got The Ring to fiddle their rankings.  Texan policeman Ike Fluellen was #10, credited with two phantom victories in Mexico.  As the tournament approached, Fluellen’s ranking was hiked to #3, and as the tournament began at least eleven boxers were alleged to have falsified records.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SON_Spm7fcE

The whole sleazy affair may well have remained a secret were it not for the Scott LeDoux – Johnny Boudreaux fight where a dodgy points decision triggered Le Doux to fly off the handle in the post match interview claiming he was told he “wouldn’t get the decision”, and that it “was a done deal”.  In the media scrum, commentator Howard Cosell’s toupee was whipped off by a loose boot.  Malcolm ‘flash Gordon had smelled the whole rotten thing from the off, but would eventually abandon his passionate fight against boxing injustice, losing all interest in the sport and becoming a beaten-up recluse himself.

Rugby.

Known now by everyone as ‘Bloodgate’, Tom Williams the player who’d munched down on some blood capsules, claimed he was offered a plum job on retirement at Harlequins among other sweeteners if he kept his mouth shut about the blood sub incident against Leinster in 2009.

http://video.ireland.com/video/iLyROoafMl5M.html

Williams came clean and had his ban reduced to four months by a review panel while director of Rugby, Dean Richards, was suspended for three years and the physio Steph Brennan for two.  Throughout the entire process leading up to the appeal case, Harlequins continually pressured Williams to make a limited rather than a full disclosure appeal to his original 12-month ban. Shortly before the appeal, Richards resigned and Williams was free to make a full disclosure of the facts.

Cricket.

In a country like India where all but the most rudimentary of wagers are illegal, cricket and allegations of ‘spot-fixing’ are strangely rife.  On the 26 and 27 August 2010 during Pakistan’s fourth test at Lords, players Mohammad Amir, Salman butt and Mohammad Asif accepted monies on behalf of Indian third parties to bowl no-balls.

They were eventually found guilty by an ICC tribunal and banned for five years.  The allegations, originally made by The News of the Screws, were thought to be a little harsh on Amir, who was such a young (19-years old at the time) and easily influenced member of the team.

Baseball.

Sportswriter Hugh Fullerton noticed weird betting moves among gamblers in his hotel lobby, as the odds on the heavily favoured Chicago White Sox shifted suddenly over to the Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 World Series.  He alerted the press, saying, “Advise all not to bet on this series.  Ugly rumours afloat.”

Arnold Rothstein, a prominent New York gambler known as “The Big Bankroll” had agreed to finance the fix for $80,000, as he placed large bets on the Reds.  Much of the press at the time assumed the swinging odds was simply a result of a mooted arm injury to Chicago’s “ace” pitcher, Eddie Cicotte.  On September 28 1920, White Sox outfielder Joe Jackson and pitcher Eddie Cicotte admitted their involvement in conspiring with gamblers to throw the World Series.  Following these revelations, Sox player Oscar Felsch admitted receiving $5,000 from gamblers in an interview with the Chicago American.

Football.  

Is it sour grapes that football won’t be coming home for the foreseeable future, or has Lord Triesman the former chairman of the FA, really got a genuine gripe about rot and dirty dealings at the very heart of football’s power, FIFA?

He talks of “improper and unethical behaviour” in the early stages of the England World Cup bid.  Triesman has accused Concacaf president Jack Warner of asking for £2.5m to build a school and offices in Trinidad at a meeting in a hotel room in London 2009, suggesting the monies would go directly to Warner.  Warner’s reply to Triesman went along the lines, “A piece of nonsense.  I’ve never asked Triesman, nor any other person, English or otherwise, for any money for my vote.”

Controversial panty-hose pedant and FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, has since exposed his main rival Mohamed Bin Hamman of issuing bribes to members of the Caribbean Football Union in a meeting organised by Jack Warner.  The case continues.