World Soccer – August 2019

THE DANGER MAN

The most insidiously pernicious

individual operating in football over the

last two decades was not Jeff Webb or

Jack Warner or Chuck Blazer or any of

the other creeps who illicitly feathered

their own offshore financial nests.

It was one single

individual by the name

of Wilson Raj Perumal.

The 53-year-old from

Singapore travelled the

world for a decade sowing

bribes in just about every

corner of every continent.

The betting turnover

generated from his

activities can never be estimated

accurately but may have

run to billions of dollars. For all

anyone knows, it may be running still.

FIFA’s ethics committee is still

working through a gallery of “known”

officials and players who took Perumal’s

cash. The latest are Mooketsi Kgotlele,

former general secretary of the

Botswana FA, and ex-Sierrea Leone

official Abu Bakarr Kabba.

Kgotlele has been banned for life

and Bakarr Kabba for five years after

being bribed to “manipulate

international matches for

betting purposes by Mr

Wilson Raj Perumal, a

known match-fixer.”

Doubtless there will be

more to come, in

themselves only a fraction

of the guilty.

The FIFAgate crooks

skimmed millions of dollars out of

the game. But that was “only” money.

Perumal and his band of reprobates

stole something far more valuable:

football’s credibility.

ALGERIA

Won the

Africa Cup

of Nations for

the first time

since 1990

with a 1-

victory in the

Final against

Senegal.

CONNAH’S

QUAY

NOMADS

The Welsh

part-timers

recovered from

a 2-1 first-leg

home loss to beat

Kilmarnock 2-

in Scotland in the

Europa League

and win 3-

on aggregate.

football for 10 years by the FIFA ethics

committee for misuse of development

funds. His expulsion was announced

three days after he registered a complaint

with the Court of Arbitration for Sport to

try to halt what he described as FIFA’s

“hostile takeover” of CAF.

Amid all of this, there was the

Champions League Final chaos which

culminated in the disciplinary committee

refusing to punish Morocco’s Wydad for

walking off midway through the second

leg against Esperance of Tunisia. This

now also awaits CAS judgment.

Coincidentally, at Congress on the eve

of the AFCON Final in Cairo, Ahmad saw

now-out-of-favour Pinnick replaced as

a CAF vice-president by South Africa’s

Danny Jordaan as well as the promotion

to second vice-president of Morocco’s

Fouzi Lekjaa.

This is the same Lekjaa who allegedly

head-butted referee Bamlak Tessema

Weyesa after RS Berkane – Lekjaa’s

hometown club – lost to Zamalek in

the CAF Confederation Cup Final. Lekjaa

remains unpunished presumably because

no one has the nerve to move against

any of the president’s men.

Unwittingly, FIFA itself threw fuel on

the African fire with the 2015-16 reforms

which converted a 24-strong executive

committee into a 37-strong council.

Suddenly Africa’s representation at

the top table jumped from four to seven

• hence multiplying the political and no
  less important financial value of being
  a major player within the CAF ExCo and
  on the world stage.
  This, in turn, has raised the value of

being a national FA president. And, in

Africa, power in the world of football can

engender danger from political jealousies

and rivalries back home.

FIFA’s takeover of CAF is far from a

perfect solution. A forensic audit of CAF’s

accounts and contracts is essential and,

ideally, the entire ExCo should be sacked

and direct rule imposed from Zurich.

Think about it. FIFA, mired in financial

scandal for so many years, is having to

sort out CAF. That says everything about

how disastrous the African football crisis

has become.

MADAGASCAR

The AFCON

debutants stunned

Nigeria, winning

2-0 to top their

opening-round

group in Egypt.

REAL

MADRID

Zinedine Zidane’s

side were thrashed

7-3 by their city

neighbours Atletico

in a pre-season

friendly in the

United States.

EGYPT

Crashed

out of the

AFCON

earlier than

expected

in the round

of 16.

VINCENT

KOMPANY

The former

Manchester City

captain began

his managerial

career in charge

of Anderlecht

with a 2-1 defeat

to Oostende

in the opening

league game

of the season

in Belgium.

Africa’s confederation – and the game

over which it sort of rules – has long

been an administrative minefield

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