ZCZC
BSP-06
FBL-FIFA-OCEANIA-CORRUPTION-NZL
New Zealand fraud probe into ex-Oceania Football chief
WELLINGTON, Feb 24, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – New Zealand’s Serious Fraud Office
said Monday it is investigating former Oceania Football Confederation
employees — including ex-president David Chung — after a complaint from
FIFA.
Authorities will probe whether any criminal activity had taken place, but
declined to provide further details of an active investigation.
“An investigation relating to former employees of Oceania Football
Confederation is ongoing,” a fraud office spokesman told AFP.
“The SFO commenced the investigation after receiving a complaint from the
Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).”
FIFA suspended Chung for six years in March 2019 for corruption related to
an NZ$15 million (US$10 million) building project in Auckland.
It found Chung guilty of receiving gifts and conflicts of interest over the
scheme — which intended to create a lavish “Home of Football” for the
confederation in the New Zealand city.
Chung, from Papua New Guinea, had been one of FIFA’s most powerful
officials, holding the position of senior vice-president and sitting on the
organisation’s ruling council.
He quietly resigned from the confederation soon after FIFA began
investigating him, with the world governing body saying his departure was
“for personal reasons”.
The Serious Fraud Office, which has the power to investigate corrupt
conduct carried out in New Zealand even if the participants are foreign
nationals, did not name other ex-OFC staff under investigation.
FIFA banned former confederation general secretary Tai Nicholas for eight
years in mid-2019, after it found the Cook Islander guilty of
misappropriating funds and bribery in relation to the building project.
Both confederation and FIFA declined to comment on the New Zealand
investigation.
Oceania — consisting mainly of Pacific island nations — is the smallest
and weakest of FIFA’s six confederations, with a history of governance
problems stretching back decades.
During a rare visit to the region last year, FIFA president Gianni
Infantino warned the confederation was on its “last opportunity” to stamp out
corruption.
“If there is still somebody in Oceania who is involved in football in any
capacity, who has not realised yet that the time of abusing football for
personal gain is over, then we can really not help it any more,” Infantino
said at the time.
Chung’s predecessor, Reynald Temarii of Tahiti, was forced out in 2010
after being implicated in a vote-selling scandal during an undercover
newspaper sting.
In 2017, former Guam FA president Richard Lai, who served on FIFA’s
auditing body, was barred from football for life after admitting to accepting
almost US$1 million on kickbacks.
Another ex-confederation president, the late Charlie Dempsey of New
Zealand, created an uproar in 2000 during the vote to award the 2006 World
Cup.
He defied instructions to vote for South Africa, effectively handing the
2006 tournament to Germany, refusing to explain his actions as bribery
allegations swirled.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0914 hrs