Dempsey abstained to punish Blatter, claims report

Dempsey abstained to punish Blatter, claims report
AGENCIES

Johannesburg, July 9: Charles Dempsey abstained from the final round of 2006 World Cup bid voting as an act of revenge against world football chief Sepp Blatter, according to a report.

Meanwhile, at Auckland, Dempsey, announced he was stepping down from his position but declined once more to unravel the mystery of the threats he said forced him to allow Germany to host the tournament.

The mass-circulation The Sunday Times has claimed the New Zealand-based Oceania delegate had been humiliated by FIFA president Blatter during the Oceania Congress in Samoa two months ago.

Blatter told Dempsey, who has ruled the Oceania Football Confederation for 18 years with an iron fist, that the time was fast approaching for him to surrender his crown, The Times claimed.

He was also told voting for England ``because his roots lay there'' was not acceptable. Oceania member nations later granted Dempsey his wish provided he switched to South Africa when England were eliminated, the report said.

The Times said Dempsey sat drinking with European football boss Lennart Johansson from Sweden at a cosy, wood-panelled bar in an exclusive Zurich hotel on the eve of the vote.

Johansson knew Germany had secured the eight votes from Europe and the four from Asia - one short of the 13 the 1974 hosts needed to stage the World Cup a second time.

``I know who the winner is ... It is a country like England,'' Johannsson boasted as he left the bar after meeting Dempsey.

In London, former British Sports Minister Tony Banks, a member of the England bid team, told The BBC on Saturday that one of the FIFA executive members saw Dempsey at breakfast on Thursday morning.

Banks said: ``I think people had worked out that, if England went out, the crucial guy was probably going to be Charlie Dempsey.

``Charlie came under intense pressure and one of the FIFA executive members said at breakfast on the morning of the vote he was trembling like a leaf.

OFC MEEETING: Dempsey's decision to retire in September came after he met the executive of the Oceania Football Confederation, whose presidency he is giving up, to explain why he abstained in the final FIFA vote over who should run the competition in six years' time.

The 79-year-old's only explanation for his action so far has been that he received ``strong advice'' to abstain and that he had been threatened.

At the centre of a world storm of protest since the vote in Zurich on Thursday, Dempsey emerged from a marathon emergency meeting of the OFC in his home town Auckland to say the group had backed him.

But he added, once more without detailing the particulars of the motives for his abstention, that he would nonetheless retire at its annual congress in September.

``Behind closed doors the executive met and discussed -- I wasn't present -- and gave approval to the explanations that I gave for what took place in Zurich,'' Dempsey said, without elaborating.

`But after all this consideration and the (media) harassment I will retire at the end of September because I cannot accept what has taken place over the last three days.''

Dempsey has said he will explain his reasons publicly on Monday.

Delegates at the OFC meeting in Auckland included the chairman of Soccer Australia, Basil Scarsella, OFC vice-president Johnny Tinsly Lulu of Vanuatu and OFC general secretary Josephine King -- Dempsey's daughter.

Scarsella said before the meeting that Dempsey deserved a chance to explain, but added he would be keen to succeed him as president if he stepped down before his term expired in 2002.

SA OUTRAGE: The Johannesburg-based The Sunday Times

said South Africa lost the right to stage the World Cup because of ``naked economic opportunism'' by Asia.

Asian delegates from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Thailand voted en bloc for Germany in Zurich on Thursday to rob Africa of its first World Cup.

``The absence of support from Asia, which has many ties with South Africa can be that they soulessly chose to place their economic interests before those of football.''

It noted that South Korean delegate Mong-Joon Chung is boss of the Hyundai Motor Corporation, which recently signed a multimillion-dollar deal with German company Daimler-Chrysler.

The Times was particularly scathing of the two Asian delegates based in the Middle East -- Abdullah Al-Dabal from Saudi Arabia and Mohammed Bin Hammam from Qatar.