It's one thing to bribe Executive Committee members in order to unjustly award a World Cup. It's another to bribe football associations into accepting unjust results.
That was the case on Thursday when it was revealed FIFA paid the football association of Ireland €5 million to stop legal action over Thierry Henry's handball in the national team's World Cup playoff defeat by France in 2009. FAI chief executive John Delaney said he believed the association had a legal case against FIFA after Henry's infraction.
After missing the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, however, Delaney admitted a "legitimate agreement" was made.
"We felt we had a legal case against FIFA because of how the World Cup playoff hadn't worked out for us with the Henry handball," he said in a radio interview with Ireland's national broadcaster RTé. "Also, the way Blatter behaved, if you remember on stage, having a snigger and having a laugh at us. I told him how I felt about him, There were some expletives used. We came to an agreement."
"It's a very good agreement for the FAI and a very legitimate agreement for the FAI," Delaney added. "It was a payment, an agreement not to proceed with a legal case."
"Not to proceed" being the key phrase.
Since the legal process had already begun, the Irish FA argues that the payment was a settlement, not a bribe; however, it's just another example of FIFA using money to make issues disappear and another example of the corruption that plagued the organization under the soon-to-be former president Sepp Blatter.
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