The $10m ghost returns to haunt Mbalula
Chief Sports writer Kevin McCallum dissects Minister Fikile Mbalula’s response to Fifa over THAT alleged $10m ‘bribe’.
|||On the night before he tore a strip off Fifa for something Fifa said they didn’t really mean to do, Fikile Mbalula tweeted: “Good night everyone please don’t smoke COW DUNG, it’s very dangerous ....”
He’s right, you know. Back in 2002, it was reported Malaysia had a problem with addicts sniffing and smoking ‘fresh cow dung to get high’. “'The cow dung emits gases like sulphur, and addicts sniff on these gasses to get high,” the official at the agency said on condition of anonymity, the Sydney Morning Herald wrote. “The problem is not very serious yet, but we are worried as this method means addicts can get high for free.”
Mbalula now blaming the media for looking to find SA guilty of paying a bribe. #FIFABribe
— Kevin McCallum (@KevinMcCallum) March 17, 2016
Allowing people to get high, or, indeed, anything for free, is simply not on. Unless, that is, it’s, say, $10-million that you gave to a man with a reputation for not being shy of pocketing cash not meant for him. Jack Warner. South Africa made a deal with the devil of world football. They knew whom they were dealing with. Let’s assume, for the hell of it, the Africa Diaspora programme was a real thing. Why insist, as the letter from Safa to Fifa insisted, that the money be sent to Warner personally? Why not take the time to set up a trust, then follow up to see how your $10m was benefiting football in the Caribbean? Why not celebrate it?
“We didn’t know he would steal it,” said Mbalula in his press conference yesterday as he denied, again, the allegation the $10m was a bribe. Fifa said they had not meant to claim the $10m was to ensure the 2010 World Cup went to South Africa, and that they were just repeating the indictment by the US justice authorities. And, yet, somehow, you think that there were some in Fifa who believe and know the money was dodgy. Mbalula admitted the money was sent to a dodgy man. Claiming they did not know Warner would keep the money for himself is not only naive, but suggests they were negligent.
Mbalula rehashing last year’s definition of what a bribe is. It can’t be a bribe as it was only paid afterwards. Yes, it can. #FIFABribe
— Kevin McCallum (@KevinMcCallum) March 17, 2016
Mbalula repeated his denials and reminded of his skewed reasoning from last year.
His statement that it can’t be a bribe because you don’t pay bribes afterwards, you pay them before, is nonsensical. It’s a bribe no matter when it is paid.
Some, desperate to defend the memory of 2010, argued that South Africa was being picked on and that other countries had done the same thing. That doesn’t make this right. That doesn’t make it dandy to pay for votes, to sell the soul of a country. “Warner had met the US president,” said Mbalula to explain why they trusted Warner. That hardly makes him clean.
“Bribes are like a ghost and it’s untouchable, you never find it,” said Mbalula last year. Sometimes ghosts, perhaps seen after smoking cow dung, come back to haunt you. - The Star