Last week in Zuriuch Switzerland, the biggest sporting organization on the planet was shaken to its core when 14 high level officials of FIFA were arrested by Swiss Police at the 65th Congress in Zurich, Switzerland.
The men are detained under indictment for racketeering,wire fraud, and money laundering - which investigators say, all sprang from corrupt practices which were employed to get different nations to win the bid to host the World Cup.
Executive members of the Football Federation of Belize were in Zurich for the meetings. So did we support Sepp Blatter? President Ruperto Vicente only just returned yesterday evening told us he did. He was heading back out of the country this morning on another football related matter, and we managed to catch up with him to ask him what influenced the vote, and what he thought when he saw the Swiss Police officers pouring into the hotel:
Daniel Ortiz
"Were you at all concerned for your safety seeing the Swiss police arresting persons? Did that cross your mind when you saw them coming up?"
Ruperto Vicente - President, FFB
"Not at all because, there's no reason to. You know what is involved there. You know in no way I would ever be involved in it nor would the Football Federation of Belize will ever be involve in those situations."
Daniel Ortiz
"But sir 4 of the names up for indictment come from CONCACAF. That's our regional organization. Wouldn't it be such a far stretch to say that Belize's football is somewhat tainted because of that situation, that maybe knowing or unknowingly we've participated in corrupt activities within FIFA?"
Ruperto Vicente - President, FFB
"Yes those individuals are from CONCACAF and I've said before there's nothing wrong with CONCACAF. CONCACAF is better off today that it was 3 years ago. It means that CONCACAF has come a long way. What is wrong with CONCACAF is individuals that have their own interest. Yes, Belize football may have been tainted and certainly we are not immune from that situation because we can also be investigated. Because we had signed contracts with Traffic Sports and Traffic Sports is one of the organization that is in the middle of the whole situation and so our contracts were signed up to 2018 and so we may also be called to questions. When that time comes we will have to respond accordingly. Remember that those contracts were signed by previous administration. We have not signed any contract with Traffic Sports. The election in itself even came out very good. Looking at the situation that was at hand, we thought that there would have been a lot of difficulties with that election but it came out positive."
Daniel Ortiz
"Did Belize vote for Joseph Sepp Blatter or which candidate did we vote for?"
Ruperto Vicente - President, FFB
"Well I voted for Joseph Blatter. Reason being is that he was up for development and Belize needs as much assistance in development as possible and so we also put the challenge that it is now his responsibility to clean up the situation in FIFA."
Daniel Ortiz
"It has widely been speculated that persons just under Mister Blatter have been indicted. Why exactly is he not under question, not being asked to answer certain questions when there is this great perception that whether it is unfair or not that he may be involved in that world wide corruption practices?"
Ruperto Vicente - President, FFB
"Remember that it is CONCACAF officials that are under criminal investigation at this point. The Swiss authorities have just started their probing into activities in FIFA. So I cannot comment on those activities because I do not have the facts on those. FIFA is a good organization as well as CONCACAF. There's nothing wrong with those organizations. You know, what is wrong are individuals who have their own agendas, their own interest and creating the difficulties for the organization."
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