ZURICH — Interpol suspended its 10-year ₧20 million partnership with Fifa yesterday while football’s world governing body is implicated in bribery allegations.
The international police liaison group said it would “freeze the use of financial contributions from Fifa” which are used to fight match-fixing. Interpol’s secretary-general Jürgen Stock took the decision “in light of the current context surrounding Fifa”.
“All external partners, whether public or private, must share the fundamental values and principles of the organisation,” Stock said in a statement.
Last week, Interpol issued a global alert relating to two former Fifa officials and four marketing executives who face charges in the United States, including racketeering and corruption.
The six are among 14 football and marketing officials indicted by the US Department of Justice in a widening corruption investigation.
Four more men have made guilty pleas and further indictments are expected.
An Interpol alert was issued for the former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner, who is linked to $10 million payments channelled through Fifa as alleged bribes to vote for South Africa as the 2010 World Cup host.
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Warner has been let out on bail in his native Trinidad and Tobago and is to return to court on July 9.
In May 2011, Fifa agreed to fund a 10-year programme to tackle match-fixing operated from an Interpol base in Singapore.
The timing of the deal signed at Fifa headquarters in Zurich three weeks before a presidential election was criticised as a campaigning tool used by the Fifa president Sepp Blatter.
The agreement includes a clause that Fifa must be “compatible with the principles, aims and activities of Interpol”, the police body yesterday.
Blatter has said he will step down as president as a result of the investigations into corruption. — Guardian
