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‘Warner wanted $7m to swing 2010 World Cup to Egypt’

FORMER Egypt sports minister, Aley Eddine Helal, has claimed that ex-FIFA vice-president, Jack Warner, wanted a bribe of $7 million in order to vote for Egypt in the bidding for the 2010 World Cup. Warner, who has been arrested and charged by the U.S. over alleged corruption at FIFA and is currently out on bail,…
Warner

Warner

FORMER Egypt sports minister, Aley Eddine Helal, has claimed that ex-FIFA vice-president, Jack Warner, wanted a bribe of $7 million in order to vote for Egypt in the bidding for the 2010 World Cup.

Warner, who has been arrested and charged by the U.S. over alleged corruption at FIFA and is currently out on bail, has been a key figure over the past few weeks as 14 officials were indicted for wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

The 72-year-old said last week that he would unleash an “avalanche” of evidence to help the U.S. authorities with their investigation, and maintains that he is “innocent of any charges.”

Investigations into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups have begun, but Helal, who was head of the 2010 bid committee when Egypt failed to win a single vote in the 2004 polls, has alleged that Warner tried to secure a bribe from his country 11 years ago.

“I did not imagine that FIFA was so corrupt,” Helal told ONTV in Cairo. “Jack Warner demanded $7 million before the voting. Egypt’s FA president El-Dahshori Harb met with the FIFA official in the United Arab Emirates and informed me that he wanted a $7 million bribe.

“I told the EFA [Egyptian Football Association] president that Egypt could not participate in such a crime. I informed Egypt’s former spy chief, Omar Suleiman, who confirmed that I had made the right decision.”

South Africa eventually saw off competition from Morocco to win the bidding and Helal added that it had taken Egypt 11 years to raise its voice because of a lack of proof, but said it backed up “the suspicions we have always had about the disgraceful way we lost.”

Former FIFA executive, Chuck Blazer, has already admitted he took bribes to help determine the award of the 1998 and 2010 World Cups and is currently on trial in the U.S.
South Africa’s sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, “categorically” denied that the $10 million paid to Warner in 2008 was a bribe for his help in securing the World Cup.

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