Be careful, it’s almost four hours (including a pee break) to FIFA and the World Cup in Qatar. Regulars in this theater can follow the wonderful political talk format more easily than the normal audience Young & Naive:
Don’t worry, Tilo and I don’t argue, we just play. It was fun. You can always do better.
It’s crazy, on the way to the studio I was afraid I wouldn’t get much out of it. In the past few weeks I’ve only read and watched, all the documentation and documents and books. So many memories from a quarter of a century of FIFA research, meanwhile 19 years have passed since my first trip to Qatar, when I was a guest at Mohamed Bin Hammam together with the then FIFA Executive Committee – with Franz, with Don Julio, with Michel , With Sepp, Chuck, Jack the Ripper, with Tricky Ricki and all the other comrades and crooks. In any case: So much already forgotten. So many wonderful episodes and quotes, so many facts, some names. So many memories came up at the same time, crazy.
It was almost four hours. And driving home, I realized I could have told eight more hours, but very different stories, or the big story in other words.
At the same time, over the past few weeks, while digging in the archive and in my memory, while training the synapses, it became clear to me once again: The big story is too much for one person.
It can’t just be squeezed into a book cover or in 90 minutes or in 4 x 90 minutes of TV. Anyone who has done a lot in this FIFA business can and, above all, must contribute their own version. If he can prove it, all the better. If this is paired with analytical power, even better.
That’s what makes the book by Bonita Mersiades so outstanding, for example: Bonita describes in „Whatever it takes. The Inside Story of the FIFA Way“ using the example of Australia’s World Cup bid, one aspect of the FIFA system is so wonderful. And her research is far from over. Much remains to be said. Much could and should not yet be said.
That remains all research not only of a life, but of several lives.
I can back up my version of the big story pretty well, with all the ups and downs, with all the twists and turns and episodes. I wrote down a lot of it in this theater a few years ago. We had some fun together here I think. What we all didn’t know at the time: Steve Berryman, that Special Agent IRS from the Criminal Investigation Divisionthe very crucial part of the FIFA charges of Department of Justice in the US read along here, fired up the Google translator, and saved every document he could find. For example this text – FIFA whistleblower Chuck Blazer collects 9.6 million dollars (and more) – which I worked on together with Andrew Jennings at the time.
Without our work, the FIFA charges would hardly have come about. There were some mosaic stones.
That stays.
In the magazine honoring Andrew Jennings, many of those who were involved speak out.