Having watched last night’s BBC Panorama programme on Fifa, I am even more convinced that its screening at that time was mistake. Its defenders will no doubt point out that it exposed apparent serious corruption on the part of three Fifa officials, if one is to believe the contents of the document flourished on the programme which had arrived in a brown envelope from a ‘trusted source’.
Having watched last night’s BBC Panorama programme on Fifa, I am even more convinced that its screening at that time was mistake. Its defenders will no doubt point out that it exposed apparent serious corruption on the part of three Fifa officials, if one is to believe the contents of the document flourished on the programme which had arrived in a brown envelope from a ‘trusted source’.
The interviewer in the programme, Andrew Jennings, has conducted a long crusade to expose what he believes to be endemic corruption at Fifa: no doubt Sepp Blatter and his collleagues see it as a vendetta which is why Jennings is the only journalist to be banned from Fifa headquarters.
Jennings wrote a door stopper of a book about his crusade. I did buy it, but I only read so far and sent it to the charity shop. It was very much in the style of ‘A arrived in Geneva where he was met by B and they were driven by limousine to the Hotel du Lac de Boredom.’ Last night we saw his investigative journalism techniques in action, shouting at Fifa officials as they left their hotel as a rather ineffective and elderly Swiss doorman tried to stop him.
Trinidad and Tobago Fifa official Jack Warner has been in trouble before for making a profit on the sale of World Cup tickets and it was alleged he had been at it again. Confronted by Andrews, the charm merchant said he would spit on him except that he would dignify his spit in that way.
So why do I think it was a bad idea to screen the programme yesterday?:
- Why did the BBC not inform the FA of its evidence some weeks ago? The FA could have gone through the official channels (derided by Jennings) to Fifa and, if found guilty of malpractice, they could have been dealt with.
- Of course, that may not have worked because Fifa argues with some justice that what is happening here is the raking over of old allegations from the late 1990s. It claims that it has cleaned up its act since then although that is doubtful given recent events.
- Why not put the programme out next Monday? Because the BBC thought it could get a better ratings boost yesterday.
- I serve on the committee of a global organisation and I know that on such committees an attack on one can easily be perceived as an attack on all.
The English bid was probably not going to succeed anyway, so I would not lay failure at the door of the BBC, but as the official bid team has said the programme was an embarrassment. At a time when it is under political attack, the BBC has shot itself in the foot.