PARIS: Fifa officials were on Thursday given until Oct24 to hand back luxury watches offered as “gifts” by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF).
The order was handed down by the Investigatory Chamber of Fifa’s Ethics Committee.
A statement said that the CBF handed out “65 gift bags each
containing a Parmigiani watch, to a group comprising the 28 officials
on the Fifa Executive Committee, a representative from each of the
32 Member Associations competing in the 2014 Fifa World Cup
Brazil, and a representative from each of the 10 Member Associations in (South American Federation) Conmebol.”
The gifts were distributed to coincide with the Fifa congress and the start of the World Cup in Brazil in June, with the CBF claiming they had obtained the watches at a cost of US$8,750 (RM28,000) each.
The Investigatory Chamber of the game’s world governing body said that an independent appraisal
determined that one of the
watches was worth US$26,748 on the market.
They declared that the CBF “should not have offered the watches, and ... either returned it or ... reported the matter to the Investigatory Chamber.”
They added that they “will not pursue further formal ethics proceedings in this matter against officials who submit the Parmigiani watch they received from CBF to the Secretariat of the Investigatory Chamber by no later than Oct 24, 2014.”
Following that deadline, all watches submitted to the Investigatory Chamber “will be donated to an independent non-profit organisation or organisations committed to corporate social responsibility projects in Brazil.”
Later on Thursday, English FA chairman Greg Dyke confirmed he was one of the officials given a watch.
Dyke, who will return the gift, said the watch was inside a bag and he had intended to give it to charity along with other items.
“During the Fifa Congress in Sao Paulo, a bag with a watch inside was left in my hotel room by the Brazilian FA.
“I had no idea of the value and it has been left untouched in my office since returning to England,” Dyke said in a statement. AFP