There was giggling at the press conference hosted by the sports minister at Safa House, the house that Sepp built, on Wednesday. Then there was laughter. Not as much chuckling as Fikile Mbalula may have been hoping for. His job on Wednesday was to get them laughing, to turn the issue of the $10-million “payment” into a joke, to deny, deflect and deafen.
Seven days ago, the minister said “no such amount has been found on our books”. On Sunday, the papers quoted Danny Jordaan as saying that such an amount did indeed exist. On Wednesday, the Minister now remembered that the amount had indeed been paid, but that everyone had known about it. Remember. We announced it? You media. You missed the story. You didn’t report on it at the time. It wasn’t a bribe. It was a donation. To be overseen by one man. A corrupt man? Well, he seemed okay at the time. No, we don’t know what he did with the money. It was for the African diaspora legacy. Thabo Mbeki said it was okay.
Mbalula was sent to the house that Sepp Blatter and Jerome Valcke built as a wrecking ball, armed with a loudhailer and a well-drilled angle. Jordaan was told to snuggle up in PE and, as comedian Deep Fried Man pointed out, there was no Oliphant in the room. Which was a pity. Jordaan has questions to answer, but Molefi Oliphant could clear up the line in the letter he sent to Valcke (“He is a citizen of South Africa,” said Mbalula, “he is married to our girl.”), “In view of the decision by the South African government that an amount of USD 10million from the organising committee’s future operational budget funding and thereafter advances the amount to the Diaspora Legacy Programme.” That sounds like the government would pay the LOC or Safa the $10m they were sending to Jack Warner.
Mbalula used the well-practiced political strategy of taking blocks of four questions at once. This allowed himself and his director general to fudge over the hard questions and not entertain any follow-up questions. Indeed, there was consternation when the Times of London attempted to do so.
The defence was simple. It was a donation to lift African football in the Caribbean. It wasn’t a bribe when we paid it over, but, hey, it may have become one when it got into the wrong hands. “A bribe is like a ghost, it’s untouchable, you’ll never find it.” Except that the Americans have found a man who has confirmed in a court of law that there was a bribe paid over the 2010 World Cup.
Mbalula asked for evidence. He welcomes the US investigation. The FBI can pull him out of bed to ask him questions. He is not afraid of them. He has nothing to answer for. He doesn’t. Jordaan and Oliphant do. Making people laugh will not make that go away. - The Star