“I’ve been banned by FIFA for the last five years, I was banned by the IOC for the past six years and I’m forbidden to interview Premier League officials. So I must be doing something right”, says British journalist Andrew Jennings.
This “something” is a series of critical books and television reports on corruption and mismanagement at the top of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).
Jennings decided to take on these two sports behemoths because he feels “sport has become the tool of capitalism”. “The multinationals are buying our sports and the FIFA and IOC top is happily going along with it”, says Jennings. “I don’t know if you noticed this, but nowadays nobody talks about sponsors anymore, there are only ‘partners’. That sounds much nicer. But why are companies like Coca-Cola and General Electric spending so much money on sponsorship deals? For one reason only: to clean up their image.”
The Englishman was especially tough on former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch. He disclosed the not-so-common fact that Samaranch served as minister of Sports under the fascist regime of Franco. He even showed a recently discovered archive picture of a young Samaranch in 1974 publicly performing the Nazi salute.
“Not only did Samaranch use the Olympics to rid himself of his fascist past, he also encouraged doping. Doping gave the Olympics world records and world records brought in more TV-viewers and thus more money. These revenues support the ridiculously luxurious lifestyle of the IOC’s top officials.”
Even worse than the situation at the IOC, is the corruption at the International Football Association. “FIFA is far more corrupt than the IOC”, emphasized Jennings. “The bigwigs on the FIFA board get extremely high salaries, cushy jobs and lucrative seats on committees. So they don’t speak up to (FIFA president ed.) Blatter about the abuse and malpractices that go on inside the organisation.”
In came Jennings, who made it his mission to discover and spread the word about the corruption at the top echelons of both the IOC and the FIFA. Apart from three books and a handful of documentaries on the subject, he created the website www.transparencyinsport.org, where he posts recent stories, useful links and even a toolbox for journalists who want to write about the topic.
Asked why he keeps on relentlessly digging into these sports federations’ malpractices, Jennings answered with a smile: “It’s just so much fun. Doing it to these bad guys makes me very pleased.”
Posted in | 14.12.2008
By: Yannick Brusselmans
