FIFA denied on Tuesday that the top lieutenant of its President, Sepp Blatter, or any other member its senior management made $10 million in bank transactions that are central to a bribery investigation against the world soccer body.
NZ to grill Blatter over agenda, Oceania World Cup place
Secretary-general Jerome Valcke had no role in the payments, which were authorised by the chairman of FIFA's Finance Committee, it said in a statement.
The chairman of the committee at the time of the payments was Argentina's Julio Grondona, who died last year.
"Neither the Secretary General Jerome Valcke nor any other member of FIFA's senior management were involved in the initiation, approval and implementation of the above project," FIFA said.
As new questions arose in the FIFA scandal, more officials were arrested, suspended or banned on Monday, and countries were weighing a World Cup boycott amid controversy over the re-election of Blatter on Friday.
A source close to the investigation said on Monday that US prosecutors believe Valcke made the $10 million bank transactions.
Valcke is described in an indictment filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, as an unidentified "high-ranking FIFA official" who in 2008 transferred the sum to another FIFA official, Jack Warner.
Valcke's alleged connection to the case was first reported by The New York Times. It said Valcke had written in an e-mail to the newspaper that he neither had authorized the payment nor had the power to do so.
FIFA's said in its statement that, in 2007, as part of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the South African Government approved a $10 million project to support the African diaspora in Caribbean countries.
FIFA was asked to process the project’s funding by withholding $10 million from the local organising committee’s (LOC) operational budget and using that to finance the diaspora legacy programme.
The South African Football Association (SAFA) instructed FIFA that the legacy programme should be administered and implemented directly by the then President of CONCACAF, Jack Warner, "who should act as the fiduciary of the Diaspora Legacy Programme Fund of $10 million."
It added: "FIFA did not incur any costs ... (and) both the LOC and SAFA adhered to the necessary formalities for the budgetary amendment."
Warner, a former FIFA vice-president, is among 14 FIFA officials and corporate executives charged by the U.S. Department of Justice last Wednesday with running a criminal enterprise that involved more than $150 million in bribes.
Warner left jail in Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday after he was granted bail, according to local media.
