5 investigated over FIFA World Cup bid corruption

GENEVA (AP) ― Five officials, including three long-serving FIFA executive committee members, are being investigated in the corruption probe into the bidding contests for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

A person familiar with the cases confirmed the names Thursday to the Associated Press after the five were identified in European media reports. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the FIFA probe is confidential.

The current FIFA board members under investigation are FIFA vice president Angel Maria Villar of Spain, Michel D’Hooghe of Belgium and Worawi Makudi of Thailand.

Villar and Makudi risk losing their FIFA seats within months as even provisional suspensions from all football duty can block them from standing in scheduled confederation elections.

The others under suspicion are German great Franz Beckenbauer and Harold Mayne-Nicholls of Chile.

Beckenbauer was a FIFA voter when the board chose Russia to host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar secured the 2022 tournament. He was provisionally suspended during the World Cup in June for initially refusing to help with Garcia’s probe. 

FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter announces that Qatar will be hosting the 2022 Soccer World Cup during the FIFA 2018 and 2022 World Cup Bid Announcement in Zurich on Dec. 2, 2010. (AP-Yonhap)

Mayne-Nicholls inspected the bids for FIFA ahead of the December 2010 polls, and reportedly sought placements for family members at Qatar’s influential Aspire youth academy.

Last week, FIFA ethics committee chairmen Michael Garcia and Joachim Eckert said “a number of formal cases” had been opened against unidentified individuals.

FIFA also filed a criminal complaint to Swiss federal prosecutors against unnamed individuals cited in Garcia’s investigation report, adding to a sense of disarray about the wider World Cup investigation.

The probe was revived after Eckert tried to close the cases against Russia and Qatar ― a decision Garcia quickly appealed to FIFA.

On Thursday, FIFA said it “cannot confirm or deny any such information” about the five named, and referred questions to the ethics panel. The Kirkland & Ellis legal firm in Manhattan where Garcia is a partner was closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Individuals were identified Thursday despite strict confidentiality rules in FIFA’s code of ethics sealing details of who is under investigation, and for which alleged offenses.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has backed Eckert’s view that evidence in a 430-page report submitted by Garcia’s investigations team cannot be disclosed. They cited privacy rights to protect suspects and witnesses.

Some members of FIFA’s board who joined since the World Cup votes are calling for full disclosure. Garcia and UEFA President Michel Platini want “appropriate publication” with some redactions.

Villar, who was elected to FIFA’s ruling board 16 years ago, was a leader of the Spain-Portugal bid that was among four candidates in the 2018 contest. It lost despite a widely reported voting pact with Qatar, in breach of FIFA rules to prevent collusion.

A former Spain player and chairman of FIFA’s legal committee, Villar was previously identified in March as trying to remove Garcia from the investigation.

One bidder was “particularly uncooperative” with Garcia’s requests, Eckert noted in his investigation summary. Only Spain-Portugal among nine bidders was not examined in Eckert’s 42-page document.

D’Hooghe, the longest tenured board member with 26 years’ service, previously acknowledged accepting a painting from a Russian former FIFA colleague during the campaign. He has said he voted only for his native Netherlands-Belgium bid in the 2018 contest.

D’Hooghe, whose FIFA mandate expires in 2017, did not respond to messages requesting comment Thursday.

Makudi joined FIFA’s board in 1997 and was a longtime ally of Mohamed bin Hammam, the now-disgraced Qatari who was a key FIFA power broker.

Makudi was alleged in Britain’s Parliament to have sought favors from England’s failed 2018 bid. He denied the claims, which a FIFA ethics panel dismissed in 2011 before Garcia and Eckert were appointed.

Even if the FIFA prosecutions fail against Villar and Makudi, the cases could potentially remove them from high office.

Garcia and Eckert typically impose provisional suspensions on football officials when cases are pending, and both board members are due for reelection. 

Villar has a late-January deadline to declare in UEFA elections for four of its eight delegates on the FIFA board. The vote of European football federations is March 24 in Vienna.

Makudi’s latest four-year mandate from the Asian Football Confederation also expires soon. Those elections are expected in May. 

The FIFA board, likely including the implicated trio, meets Dec. 18-19 in Marrakech, Morocco, and could get the Garcia dossier to review.

Amid the turmoil last week, Garcia and Eckert agreed that FIFA’s independent audit and compliance official, Domenico Scala, should decide what evidence to give the board to help decide next steps in a saga that has dogged football’s governing body for more than four years.

Overseas shopping one click away Nation’s overseas direct purchase market expected to reach 2 trillion won this year

Lee Jeong-kyu, a 65-year-old pensioner, recently bought a Barbour waxed jacket, a hot-selling fashion item in Korea, on a U.K. online shopping site. 

“The price was 20 to 30 percent cheaper than in Korea. Free shipping was also available,” he said. “Among other things, it’s great to feel like a young trend-setter because overseas shopping was unthinkable when I was young.”

In the era of one-click Internet shopping, Korean customers are flocking to global online shopping sites. For cheaper deals, they are buying directly from foreign e-retailers, rather than through Korean importers. 

In the past, there were some language and shipping issues. But now foreign online shopping malls are also upping efforts to attract big spenders from Korea as they offer Korean language services and free international shipping. 

As of October, the nation’s overseas direct shopping purchases totaled 1.35 trillion won ($1.22 billion) in sales. After this week’s Black Friday, the figure is expected to hit a record 2 trillion won this year. 

The new shopping frenzy is still driven by fashionable but budget-conscious young mothers, who discover the virtue of online shopping while looking for cheaper deals on Ralph Lauren T-shirts and Stokke strollers. 

Over the years, shopping items have also become more diversified, to include cosmetics, vitamins and home appliances. A wider group of customers, including middle-aged men, are joining to increase sales of TVs and equipment for golf or trekking. 

But local manufacturers and retailers appear perplexed over Korean people’s unexpected spending outside the country. Because some Korean-brand products are sold at cheaper prices abroad, doubts are also rising about whether they are charging too much on their home turf. 

With the Black Friday shopping weekend starting, Korean on- and off-line retailers are offering deep discounts to lure back the customers who would be sitting in front of PC monitors to look for hot deals.

“Black Friday is reshaping the whole retail sector,” said a local department store official on condition of anonymity. “We are also offering discount deals but need more fundamental solutions to attract customers.”

In the meantime, some local retailers are turning eyes to the growing number of Asian customers who are increasingly visiting Korean online shopping sites to buy beauty and fashion items.

As the Korean pop culture is fast expanding its presence across Asia, Hallyu fans, mostly from China, are willing to open their wallets to buy products worn by their favorite celebrities. 

Industry watchers predict that the free trade pact recently signed between Korea and China would become a boon for both countries to accelerate online trading between the two nations in the near future. 

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)

(LEAD) Park's office denies ex-aide's alleged meddling in state affairs

SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- The presidential office on Friday denied a news report that a former aide to President Park Geun-hye meddled in state affairs through regular meetings with a core group of presidential officials.

On the front page of Friday's paper, the vernacular daily Segye Times ran an article under the headline "Jeong Yun-hoe's meddling in state affairs is true," claiming the former aide held regular meetings with a group of 10 other people, including three of Park's closest secretaries, to exchange information on state affairs.

The report, citing an internal document of the presidential office dated Jan. 6, also claimed that Jeong instructed the group to inform the press and other news outlets of plans to replace Park's chief of staff, Kim Ki-choon, so that the right mood could be created for his replacement.

The former aide holds no official title in the current administration but is reported to still wield enormous influence in the running of state affairs.

Park's spokesman, Min Kyung-wook, strongly denied the allegations, saying the report is totally groundless.

"The report regarding Cheong Wa Dae in today's Segye Times is not true," he said in a press briefing. "The reported (allegations) are nothing but a collection of groundless rumors."

   The internal document cited in the article was a report on rumors that were circulating in the financial community at the time, not a formal report for the alleged internal inspection, Min said.

The chief of staff received a verbal report on the rumors at the time but the presidential office found them to be untrue and took no action against those cited in the article, the spokesman added.

Later in the day, Min said three of the 10 presidential officials decided to lodge a complaint with the prosecution against the daily on charges of libel.

The presidential office will also request the prosecution to investigate a former official at the presidential office, who authored the internal document, about whether he violated the law on management of public records, Min added.

The main opposition party New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) immediately attacked the administration, claiming that the allegations it has raised about the existence of a secret group of aides controlling Cheong Wa Dae were proven to be true.

"The (10 members of the reported group) and those involved in writing up the document must (testify) before the National Assembly's steering committee," NPAD spokesman Kim Sung-soo said in a press briefing. "Our party will focus our powers on this issue."

   Earlier on Monday, the daily reported that the presidential office launched an inspection in January into allegations that Jeong took hundreds of millions of won (hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars) in bribes in exchange for favors in high-level government appointments.

The paper also claimed that the inspection was halted in February after the police official in charge was abruptly sent back to the police from his assignment at the presidential office.

Cheong Wa Dae denied those allegations, saying it will take "strong measures" against articles that are not true.

hague@yna.co.kr