25th December, 2015
The joint 2018 World Cup bid by The Netherlands and Belgium is to be scrutinised by the FIFA Ethics Committee following allegations of vote buying in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.
It has been reported that Amadou Diallo, a lobbyist with close ties to former FIFA vice-president Mohamed bin Hammam, was paid around €10,000 (£7,436/$11,000) in the build-up to the 2010 ballot for his help in securing votes.
Any association to Bin Hammam automatically raise suspicion of wrongdoing as the Qatari was banned for football for life in 2012 for misconduct during his time as President of the Asian Football Confederation, which came after he had been hit with a life suspension in 2011 for bribing other Football Associations in his FIFA Presidential campaign and during the 2018 and 2022 bid races.
According to insidethegame.com, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) has also revealed it will launch its own investigation into the accusations of corruption.
“The KNVB has taken note of the reports in De Volkskrant on Saturday, December 12th about the process surrounding the World Cup bid from Netherlands and Belgium in 2010,” a statement read.
“In the context of due diligence, the Dutch FA has launched an investigation in which all documents pertaining to the procedure of the World Cup bid will be scrutinised.”
Harry Been, a former KNVB general secretary and a member of the Bid Committee for The Netherlands and Belgium’s joint effort, has denied wrongdoing but insisted he takes the allegations seriously.
“I cannot remember that we in the World Cup campaign bid for 2018 allowed anything inappropriate to pass by,” he said.
“I obviously take questions from this newspaper and the investigation seriously.
“Files from that time will be removed and studied as quickly as possible and evaluated.
“We will then notify the result to the outside world.”