The extra $15 million was termed “marketing in kind” - a commitment that Houseman described as “pretty meaningless.” The Visa offer was actually presented as consisting of $195 million. then engineered that result at the FIFA board meeting.”
The Visa offer was then presented to the FIFA committee meeting and - in Judge Preska’s words - “further to Mr Valcke’s prior assurance … that ‘Visa would be the partner,’ Messrs. to match Master-Card’s bid) they, not MasterCard, would be FIFA’s new financial services partner. Unknown to MasterCard were FIFA’s parallel negotiations with Visa, who - in Judge Preska’s words - were being given “blowby-blow descriptions of the status of the FIFA-MasterCard negotiations.”Īt the moment when FIFA appeared ready to clinch a deal with MasterCard, Valcke called Visa and told them that, if they upped their $150 million offer by $30 million (i.e.
Approval for the deal was voted by the three required FIFA committees, and a final contract was drawn up, signed by MasterCard, and couriered to FIFA. Parts of Schuster’s testimony are labeled “wholly incredible,” other parts “ludicrous.” On one point, Valcke’s credibility is “totally destroyed.”īriefly: Valcke and his associates negotiated with MasterCard and got everything they wanted - basically, $180 million in cash, for an eight-year deal covering the World Cups to be staged in 20. She draws attention to the way in which they “characterized their breaches” as “white lies,” “commercial lies,” or “bluffs.” Her straight-to-the-point style is evident throughout - as in her withering remark, tossed in almost as an aside, that FIFA’s Tom Houseman “holds himself out as legal counsel but is not authorized to practice law in any jurisdiction” Houseman, along with the FIFA marketing director Jerome Valcke and two other negotiators from the FIFA marketing department, Robert Lampman and Stefan Schuster, do not fare well under Judge Preska’s critical gaze. Judge Preska confronts FIFA with its own “fair play” slogan, calling these negotiations “anything but fair play.” Her report is a masterpiece - so clear, so concise, and so light on the legalese that it makes irresistible reading. “FIFA’s negotiators,” says Judge Preska, “lied repeatedly to MasterCard” by not telling them they were speaking with Visa, and they “lied to Visa” when they repeatedly assured Visa that MasterCard had no first-refusal rights. A new contract was under negotiation at the beginning of this year, in accordance with MasterCard’s contractual first-refusal rights (or “first right to acquire” as FIFA prefers to name it).īut while FIFA was dealing with MasterCard, it was also talking to Visa. The current contract expired with this summer’s tournament in Germany.
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