In einem Anfall von Wahnsinn habe ich gerade einige Zitate aus den Unterlagen des US District Courts – Case 06 Civ. 3036 (LAP) – zur Visa-Mastercard-Sache getwittert.

Im Grunde geht es um die Frage, ob man dem amtierenden FIFA-Generalsekretär Jérôme Valcke, Buddy von Tricky Ricky Teixeira (und einst als Director of FIFA Marketing & TV verantwortlich für das Kreditkarten-Desaster), glauben darf.

Ich sage: Nein.

Niemand sollte Valcke auch nur ein Wort glauben.

Wer wird schon einem Wahrheitsallergiker glauben?

Ob er nun Emails schreibt und darin Katar unterstellt, die WM 2022 gekauft zu haben, oder ob er andere Geschäfte betreibt. Valcke ist, liest man die Unterlagen zum Case 06 Civ. 3036 (LAP) aufmerksam, eine Art Serial Liar.

Ich verstehe nicht, wie Journalisten einen unseriösen Typen wie Valcke ernst nehmen und ständig zitieren können.

Der FIFA-General Valcke ist die Verkörperung der „Reformen“ und der neuen „Transparenz“ in der FIFA. Er ist derjenige, der – beispielsweise – die so genannte Ethik-Kommission anweist, so genannte Verfahren zu eröffnen.

Und hier sind die Quotes aus den Prozessakten noch einmal im Text-Format. Wie gesagt, es gibt mehr, dies nur ein best of:

• FIFA’s negotiators lied repeatedly to MasterCard, including when they assured MasterCard that, consistently with MasterCard’s first right to acquire, FIFA would not sign a deal for the post-2006 sponsorship rights with anyone else unless it could not reach agreement with MasterCard.
• FIFA’s negotiators lied to VISA when they repeatedly responded to the direct question of whether MasterCard had any incumbency rights by assuring VISA that MasterCard did not.
• FIFA’s negotiators provided VISA with blow-by-blow descriptions of the status of the FIFA-MasterCard negotiations while concealing from its long-time partner MasterCard both the fact of the FIFA-VISA negotiations as well as the status of those negotiations – an action FIFA’s president admitted would not be “fair play“
• FIFA’s marketing director lied to both MasterCard, FIFA’s long-time partner, and to VISA, its negotiating counterparty, to both of which FIFA, under Swiss law, owed a duty of good faith. When, pursuant to his engineering, VISA raised its bid to the same level as MasterCard’s, he declined his subordinates’ suggestion to give MasterCard the opportunity to submit a higher bid based on his concern for his own reputation with the FIFA Board. He also declined his subordinates’ recommendation that he recommend to the FIFA Board that it continue with its prior approval of MasterCard as the post-2006 sponsor. Instead, he told the board it was difficult for him to make a recommendation and never mentioned MasterCard’s first right to acquire the post-2006 sponsorship.
• On the morning of the first of March 2006 FIFA board meetings and after all three FIFA boards had previously approved MasterCard as the post-2006 sponsor, FIFA’s marketing director called VISA to say that if VISA increased its cash bid by $30 million to the level of MasterCard’s bid, VISA “would be the partner“.
• Even after MasterCard had signed the “FINAL version“ of the post-2006 sponsorship agreement and returned it to FIFA, FIFA’s negotiators delayed telling MasterCard that the FIFA Board had chosen VISA; instead they waited for the VISA board to ratify the VISA agreement.
• After the FIFA boards had approved MasterCard as post-2006 sponsor and after MasterCard had agreed to FIFA’s asking price and agreement had been reached on all other terms and after FIFA’s in-house counsel had solicited FIFA members for items that might be used to claim that MasterCard breached the Agreement, FIFA pointed to a trademark issue that had been present since 2000 or 2001 to justify granting the post-2006 sponsorship to VISA and sent a letter to MasterCard — after the commencement of this lawsuit — purporting to terminate the Agreement and thus MasterCard’s first right to acquire.

US District Court – Case 06 Civ. 3036 (LAP)

• After MasterCard and FIFA waived, under Swiss law, both the 90-day time periods set out in section 9.2 by their “conclusive conduct,“ FIFA now seeks retroactively to revive one of the 90-day periods, but not the other, to justify its choice of VISA for the post-2006 sponsorship.
• While the FIFA witnesses at trial boldly characterized their breaches as “white lies„, “commercial lies„, “bluffs„, and, ironically, “the game„, their internal emails discuss the “different excuses to give to MasterCard as to why the deal wasn’t done with them“, „how we (as FIFA) can still be seen as having at least some business ethics“ and how to “make the whole f***-up look better for FIFA.“ They ultimately confessed, however, that “[I]t’s clear somebody has it in for MC.“

US District Court – Case 06 Civ. 3036 (LAP)