Football Federation Australia (FFA) says it is co-operating with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in relation to the A$500,000 payment it made to former Fifa vice president Jack Warner in 2010 for upgrades to the Marvin Lee Stadium at the Centre of Excellence.
FFA chairman, Frank Lowy AC, in a media release last week, also said the federation would willingly co-operate with any further inquiries into any Fifa-related issues.
“We are co-operating with AFP, we have co-operated with (Fifa-appointed investigator Michael) Garcia, we have co-operated with government, we have co-operated with the Concacaf inquiry,” he said in the release.
The FFA, when contacted by the Sunday Guardian for an update on the inquiry into the payment and if any documents had been forwarded to the authorities relating to the payment, said it would not comment further on the matter.
The federation, in its emailed response, attached its latest media statement on the payment and said it was not conducting further interviews on the matter.
Calls to Australian Attorney General George Brandis’ senior media adviser Scott Bolitho to determine if a formal probe had been launched by the government went unanswered. He did not respond to the voicemail left on his phone.
Questions were also emailed to James Murphy, media adviser to Australian Sports Minister Sussan Ley, but up to presstime he had not responded.
Lowy, in the release sent by the FFA, said, “If the Australian senate wants to make another inquiry of course we would co-operate with it.”
He added, “All the files are available, but we would be giving all the same material that we have already been requested to and provided to the other inquiries.”
Lowy, in a wide-ranging interview with Sky News Australia conducted in New York, according to the release, said, “FFA had paid A$500,000 into a Concacaf bank account in good faith and expected it to be spent on the project.”
However, he said in that interview, he had never spoken to Warner about the Concacaf Centre of Excellence (COE).
Integrity Report raised red flags on payment
The Concacaf Integrity Committee report, dated April 18, 2013, at page 29 states as follows: “On or around September 23, 2010 the FFA provided $462,200 to Concacaf to support the upgrade of the Marvin Lee Stadium at the Centre of Excellence. These funds were provided through Australia’s International Football Development program in connection with its 2022 FIFA World Cup bid.”
The report added, “During FFA’s initial assessment of the upgrade project in August 2010, representatives of the FFA met with a number of COE employees, as well as Warner, and conducted a site visit at the COE to assess the scope of the project.”
The report stated that in communications with the COE employees after the trip, a member of the FFA delegation referred to the stadium upgrade project as the “Concacaf Centre of Excellence upgrade.”
It added that an FFA memo documenting the trip also referred to the COE as the Concacaf Centre of Excellence and to Warner as the president of Concacaf.
The report pointed out that one month after that visit “FFA sent funds to Concacaf. The funds from the FFA were provided by check made out to Concacaf and deposited to a bank account maintained at Republic National Bank in T&T.”
It stated, “The funds, however, were not accounted for in the Concacaf general ledger or reported as income in its financial statements for 2010. Although the committee was unable to locate records evidencing how this money was spent, bank records show that Warner comingled his personal funds in the same account to which the FFA payment was deposited.”
Lowy, in the interview, said “the decision to forward the funds followed several months of engagement between FFA, an independent Australian-based sports facility company and Concacaf officials.”
He said that he never spoke to Warner about the subject. “It was always done at the level of the executives in both areas.”
Lowy, the statement indicated, said that the FFA kept the Australian government informed about its bid and submitted “a total of seven formal reports during the bidding process and held regular meetings and briefings.”
He said the reporting included a final report audited by Ernst & Young on the expenditure of $43 million in government funding.
“FFA examined dozens of opportunities to conduct football and humanitarian projects, but pursued only a small number in Concacaf, the Asian Football Confederation, Confederation of African Football and the Oceania Football Confederation. Australia was competing against bids in which nation states negotiated over diplomatic and national commercial interests and in hindsight it was clear that Australia could never have won under those circumstances,” the release stated.
However, Lowy said, “I should have known better.”
He rejected claims the FFA Board had not been consulted about the bid.