US to Russia: Fifa corruption inquiry has nothing to do with you

US to Russia: Fifa corruption inquiry has nothing to do with you

The US embassy to Russia and the State Department have fended off criticism from Vladimir Putin about corruption charges against officials of Fifa, saying “this investigation has nothing to do with Russia”.

Putin accused the US of “meddling” abroad and an “illegal overreach” of its powers after the US attorney general announced fraud charges against nine senior current or former Fifa officials on Wednesday.

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The Russian president also suggested the charges were in part a retaliation againstFifa for having made his country the host of the 2018 World Cup, hinting at the acrimonious relations between the west and the Kremlin over the Russia’s military action in Ukraine.

But on Thursday US diplomats insisted that relations between the two countries had played no role in the affair.

“Russia does not even figure in any way in the many pages of text published for the press yesterday by the US Justice Department,” Will Stevens, spokesperson for the embassy in Moscow, said in a statement, referring to the indictment of 14 Fifa officials on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.

“Some of the figures charged are American citizens,” Stevens said. “Among them there are no citizens of the Russian Federation.

“These violations are related to the commercialization of marketing in the US and sports marketing during various football competitions mainly in territories of North America and South America. A few of the figures involved have already admitted guilt.”

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The embassy’s reaction was prompted in part by Russian media coverage of the arrests and the reaction of Russian officials, highest among them president Vladimir Putin.

Asked by an interviewer about the charges, Putin at first said: “I don’t know, it doesn’t have anything to do with us” but then warned – “Obviously I have my own opinion about this question.”

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Putin proceeded to suggest that the charges were an attempt to thwart the re-election of Fifa president Sepp Blatter and hinted that they were related to Russia hosting the 2018 World Cup.

“As we know, on Friday there was going to be an election for president of Fifa,” Putin said, “and that Mr Blatter has every chance of re-election. And we know about the pressure put on him to prevent the 2018 World Cup from taking place in Russia. We know his position that this has nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of special relationship between Fifa and Russia. This is a principled decision: sport and politics should be separate.”

With regard to the arrests, Putin continued: “It seems at the very least very strange, because the the arrests were made at the suggestion of the American side on charges of corruption. For whom? International officials. We can assume that some of them broke the law, I don’t know, but they certainly don’t have any relation to the US. These officials are not US citizens, and if something did happen, then it was not on the territory of the United States and the US does not have any relation to it.

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“This is a blatant attempt to extend their jurisdiction into other states. I in no way doubt that this is a clear attempt to prevent the re-election of Mr Blatter as president of Fifa, and that it’s a gross violation of the functional principles of international organizations.”

Putin concluded far from where he began, comparing the charges against Fifa officials to those against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: “Unfortunately, our American partners use such methods to achieve their own selfish aims, and in so doing illegally persecute people.”

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke also responded to Putin’s comments, saying: “That’s not what we’ve done, that’s not what we’re doing.”

“The basis for charges is clear,” he added, encouraging critics to read the Justice Department’s indictment. Rathke also criticized the Kremlin over Ukraine, saying “Russia has continued to fuel the conflict in south-east Ukraine” and that “the combined Russian and separatist forces continued to flout” truce terms.

Other allies of Fifa’s embattled officials joined Putin’s cause, including Kuwaiti sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, who questioned whether the American probe stems from the envy over future World Cups, such as the 2022 Cup in Qatar.

“Is it because they want to kill Fifa? Is it because they didn’t win the election?” Sheikh Ahmad asked the Associated Press, referencing the 2010 vote on host countries. “Is it related to the Ukraine-Russian war? A lot of questions [have been] raised,” he added. “Maybe not a lot of people can say it.”

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Ahmad, also the head of the Association of National Olympic Committees, has endorsed Blatter for a fifth term. “He is the best from the names we are seeing on the list.”

Blatter has said that the American investigation brings “shame and humiliation” on soccer, and that any guilty parties threaten Fifa’s reputation being “dragged through the mud”.

In addition to the allegations of corruption that have surrounded Fifa for decades, the organization has been sharply criticized for awarding World Cup hosting rights to Russia and especially Qatar, where construction for the sporting facilities is being completed by laborers under conditions compared to slavery.

But despite his criticism of Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Rathke refused to similarly denounce Qatar for working conditions there. Rathke only said that the State Department is “aware of reports of that nature” and that the US would prosecute corruption charges because they pertained to US law.

“We think labor rights and human rights are important every day,” he said, “not just when an international event comes along.”

Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko told state-owned RIA Novosti that Russia is at no risk of losing rights to the 2018 contest, a possibility that has not been raised officially but discussed widely on Russian television and social media. 

“Russia is not involved in corruption, everything was above board,” he said.