While former Federation of International Football (FIFA) executive Amos Adamu is still serving punishment for his involvement in a World Cup bid bribery scandal, latest reports says his son Samson Adamu may have been involved in another round of shady deals in the 2022 Qatar World Cup bid.
British newspaper The Sunday Times has accused the son of the former Nigerian football chief of receiving 1 million pounds ($1.5 million) to fund a dinner and workshop just before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
According to the tabloid, “FIFA’s top investigator has been called in to examine evidence that the winners of the right to host the 2022 World Cup secretly offered 1 million dollars to the son of one of the voters (Amos).”
The report says the deputy chief executive of the Qatar bid Ali al Thawadi was instrumental in getting the deal done months before the bidding contest for the 2022 World Cup.
According to the British newspaper, the documents passed to FIFA show that the Qatar Bid team offered the cash to the 26 year old Samson Adamu. This is against FIFA rules which stipulates that World Cup bidding nations are not allowed to agree or enter into any form of financial dealings with families of the 24 FIFA executive members.
Samson reportedly used the said cash, precisely 220,000 according to invoices provided by The Sunday Times as evidence, to host “300 eminent guests” to a dinner to celebrate Africa’s football legends which took place at the Vodaworld Events conference centre.
However, while Thawadi has denied knowledge of the money offered to Adamu’s son, lawyers of the Qatar 2022 bid accepted there were indeed discussions on the matter when The Sunday Times presented them with evidence. But the lawyers reportedly said they “backed out of the deal after considering the relevant FIFA rules.”
More so, in a swift reaction, Qatar’s 2022 supreme committee has denied any wrong doing. In a statement released to the media, the committee says, “We refute absolutely the allegations. The article is presented in a manner that suggests that an ‘offer’ was made to a certain individual by the Qatar 2022 Bid Committee.
“The truth is that our Bid Committee after careful consideration, opted not to sign any agreement with the individual concerned and had no part whatsoever in the ‘African Legends Dinner’ event, financially or otherwise.”
The Qatar Bid Committee also accused The Sunday Times of being “malicious and reckless in the extreme.” It also insists that the committee has “close contact with FIFA on this matter and are confident that any documents received by FIFA from The Sunday Times will merely highlight the truth as mentioned above.”
Nonetheless, an unnamed FIFA spokesperson is quoted by the newspaper as saying, “After receiving these documents, FIFA has immediately forwarded them to Michael Garcia, independent ethics committee chairman of the investigatory branch. Ii will be for Michael Garcia to analyse the documents and decide any potential next steps.”
Amos Adamu, father of the man in the middle of this allegation, was sacked from his seat as an executive member of FIFA and banned for three years after being filmed by The Sunday Times offering to sell his vote for the 2018 World Cup bid for 800, 000 pounds. Before this, he had been accused of mismanaging funds during his time as the Director General of the National Sports Commission in Nigeria although the allegations were never proven.
