So the South Africans want to sue after failing to win the 2006 World Cup. Sue who? Well, they haven't quite figured that one out yet, but they know the World Cup was theirs by right. Right?
Wrong.
There's been a lot of misconceptions floating around about the notorious vote on July 6 when Oceania representative Charles Dempsey, a Scottish-born Kiwi, abstained from the final vote and handed Germany the World Cup by a count of 12-11. The first of these is that Dempsey was shirking his duty when he abstained.
This is a distortion of the democratic process. Not voting is as much a part of the democratic process as voting, and, for better or worse, Dempsey was the designated representative of Oceania. His confederation's wishes notwithstanding, Dempsey was within his rights to act as he saw fit during the voting process. All 24 Executive Committee members - described in The Sun as "a collection of highly ambitious, highly motivated and stupendously well-rewarded individuals who travel the world at FIFA's expense and to whom life outside their closeted world of five-star luxury is anathema," and by Danny Baker in The Times as "puffed-up notorious oafs" - had the right to change their vote right up until the last moment.
Senior FIFA vice president David Will, also a Scot, commented: "I have no argument at all with his decision to abstain."
Dempsey - described to me by an acquaintance of his as "a good man who has got a bit doddery in the last few years" - voted for England in the first two rounds and when England dropped out, he opted not to back the remaining two candidates: Germany and South Africa. This catapulted him from being a 78-year-old nobody to "the most hated man in football," according to England's Daily Mail.
Of course, if he genuinely felt that England was the only worthwhile bid on the table, then perhaps he wouldn't have been as vilified as he has been. But Dempsey, it seems, may also have had his own agenda.
Martin Lipton of the Daily Mail noted that "the South African football community had played a part in trying to oust Dempsey from his Oceania role recently," while World Soccer editor Keir Radnedge, also writing in the Mail, added that Dempsey had a score to settle with former FIFA chief Joao Havelange.
Brazil, through Havelange's son-in-law and Brazilian soccer chief Ricardo Texeira, reportedly had done a deal with South Africa in exchange for support for the 2010 World Cup. Brazil dropped out of the 2006 race and rallied all the South American votes behind South Africa. So, a vote (or abstention) against South Africa was also a slap in the face for Brazil and Havelange.
With so many enemies to spite, it's no wonder that Dempsey was on a plane as soon as he left the decisive FIFA Executive Committee meeting. He was later, incredulously, reported as saying: "I never knew so much would be attached to the voting."
And what are we to make of Dempsey's accusations of intolerable pressure and threats made against him and Oceania's position in FIFA? On the surface, they appear pretty worrying, but perhaps they should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Dempsey said the threats were aimed at his family - presumably either his daughter, Josephine King who is the secretary general of the Oceania Confederation, or his granddaughter, Anne, who works for UEFA; or perhaps he had another family member who needed employment.
"On the last evening before the vote my life became unbearable," he told The Sun newspaper. "My sleep was interrupted by five phone calls. I did not make any phone calls as I feared my phone might have been bugged."
Some of these calls, he was to say later, were anonymous, but apparently he was contacted by the German and South African bid chiefs, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter and former South African president Nelson Mandela. According to Thomas Schumann, sports editor of German magazine Stern, it was believed that "the greatest amount of pressure came from Blatter." Some believe Dempsey was pushed into a corner when the South Africans revealed that they weren't going to get his vote.
Plot thick enough for you? It gets deeper. The obvious beneficiaries of Dempsey's swing away from South Africa were Germany and UEFA, European soccer's governing body led by our old friend Lennart Johansson, Blatter's archrival and the man who lost the vote to become FIFA chief two years ago. Johansson - who once reportedly referred to African soccer officials as "darkies" - has his own turf to protect and he doesn't like people getting in his way.
He's also adept at manipulating people, as he showed when the 2002 World Cup went to Japan and South Korea. Havelange and Blatter wanted it to go to Japan.
The Mail reported that Johansson was a very happy man on the evening before the vote. Sitting in the bar of the Dolder Grand Hotel, "the glasses were filled with scotch and clinked, the pianist played, and Johansson, smiling broadly and banging the table in accompaniment, led the choruses.
"As he left the bar, Johansson stopped briefly. 'I know who the winner is,' he said."
It obviously wasn't South Africa or England or Morocco. The UEFA chief was obviously delighted.
Dempsey, of course, was in his hotel room nervously awaiting another anonymous phone call. Errr . . . no, not according to Mihir Bose in The Daily Telegraph:
"At 12 o'clock that same night Dempsey was to be seen sitting in the bar of the Dolder Grand Hotel with Lennart Johansson. . . . Dempsey seemed relaxed and even joined in the songs played by the hotel's resident pianist."
According to The Sun, "The Scotland-born Dempsey wanted to vote for Germany. He is a close friend and ally of UEFA president Lennart Johansson and a staunch opponent of FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, who wanted him removed from his Oceania post."
Johansson obviously had his man in the bag, and Dempsey hardly seems to have been wracked by indecision. He had already let it be known that he planned to abstain after England dropped out. With the abstention decided upon, Johansson would once again manipulate the World Cup vote to the humiliation of the FIFA president.
And with the help of the same man. No, not Dempsey, but Dr. Chung Mong Joon, the head of South Korea's football association.
Dempsey's crucial role in the vote came about largely because of the Asian representatives' block vote for Germany when they had previously been expected to split their votes between Morocco, Germany, South Africa and possibly even England.
Last week, Asian Football Confederation secretary general Peter Velappan went out of his way to say that the Asian representatives had in no way ganged up on Blatter in revenge for not giving them five guaranteed berths in the 2002 World Cup. They had merely rewarded UEFA, he claimed, for its support on the issue. UEFA acceded to a playoff with the third-placed Asian team, so giving Asia half a chance to gain a fifth spot in the World Cup finals in 2002.
Velappan was quoted as saying: "When we were fighting for our rights, we were alone until Europe chose to help us. In this way, it was a favor, and it was nice to return it."
There is little doubt that the instigator behind this switch was the man who helped Johansson manipulate the vote for the 2002 World Cup: Dr. Chung, a member of South Korea's parliament, son of the founder of the massive Hyundai conglomerate and a man who clearly wants to put Asia and South Korea - and himself - at the forefront of world soccer.
As Martin Lipton in The Mail put it: "While the rest of the world thought the vote was about the destination of the 2006 World Cup, in fact it was a referendum on Blatter's future. And the two people in the room who really mattered were Lennart Johansson and Dr. Chung Mong Joon, the plotters in chief, the men who now have world football - and Blatter - in their grip."