The rampant FIFA corruption that has recently been exposed needs to be attributed to a methodical journalist Andrew Jennings. Jennings is a 71 year old who has spent a better part of his career exposing those who others have not wanted to uncover, including the International Olympic Committee in the 90s and the Italian mob and heroin trade in the 80s. Now, in 2015 he’s done it again – and he was asleep while the breaking news he’d set into motion was taking the world by storm.
“My phone started ringing at six in the morning,” Jennings said Tuesday from his farm in the hilly north of England. “I turned it off actually to get some more sleep, because whatever is happening at six in the morning is still going to be there at lunch time, isn’t it?”
Jennings, for half a century has investigated the dirty deals that happen over the continents. His obsession with exposing the corrupt happenings of organizations, white-collar drug rings through to exposing bad cops, has paid off in scores. For the last 15 years, Jennings has focused on FIFA, penning well selling books since 2006 such as “FOUL! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals,” [1] followed by “Panorama” on the BBC, an expose aired, and another book in 2014, called “Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family.” [2] None of what has eventuated with the FIFA scandal surprises him.
In 2002, Jennings, frustrated, decidedly crossed the line looking for the fight with Blatter and FIFA during a news conference. “I’m surrounded by all these terribly posh reporters in suits and silk ties and buttoned up shirts, for God’s sake,” he remembered. “And here’s me in me hiking gear. I get the mike and I said, ‘Herr Blatter, have you ever taken a bribe?’”
“Talk about crashing the party,” Jennings recalled Tuesday. “Reporters are moving away from me as if I’ve just let out the biggest smell since bad food. Well, that’s what I wanted. Thank you, idiot reporters. The radar dish on top of my head is spinning around to all these blazers against the wall, saying, ‘Here I am. I’m your boy. I’m not impressed by these tossers. I know what they are. I’ve done it to the IOC, and I’ll do it to them.’”
Within 6 weeks of the confrontation with Blatter, Jennings was armed with documents to bring Blatter down. [3] He received threats for defamation from executives and Blatter, and on occasion suspected that his office had been tapped, and his computer hacked. But it wasn’t until the FBI and IRS approached him that he could hand over evidence documenting multimillion dollar “commissions.”[4]
His hard work over a decade and a half has finally paid off. Now he’s looking at retiring soon, knowing that his work has finally made a difference. “I can do my garden up here in the hills and play with my lovely children.”[5] It’s a nice thought by a free man, as those corrupt are answering for their crimes.
[1] Jennings, A. FOUL! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0007208111?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0007208111&linkCode=xm2&tag=thewaspos09-20
[2] Jennings, A. Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JN73JDQ?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B00JN73JDQ&linkCode=xm2&tag=thewaspos09-20
[3] Bonesteel, M. (June 2015). What could have driven Sepp Blatter to announce his FIFA resignation. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2015/06/02/what-could-have-driven-sepp-blatter-to-announce-his-fifa-resignation/
[4] Block, M. (June 2015). ‘I Think FIFA Stinks,’ Says Reporter Who Exposed Corruption Scandal. [Interview]. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411783592/i-think-fifa-stinks-says-reporter-who-exposed-corruption-scandal
[5] Miller, M, E. (June 2015) How a curmudgeonly old reporter exposed the FIFA scandal that toppled Sepp Blatter. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/03/how-a-curmudgeonly-old-reporter-exposed-the-fifa-scandal-that-toppled-sepp-blatter/?tid=sm_tw
