Letter Addressed To Jerome Valcke Asks for $10 Million to be Sent to Jack Warner

BOMBSHELL: Letter from South Africa FA to FIFA instructing $10m payment to Warner WAS addressed to Jerome Valcke pic.twitter.com/b0yKBPRAcA
— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) June 2, 2015

Yesterday, the New York Times revealed that FIFA president Sepp Blatter's right-hand man, Jerome Valcke, was the high-ranking official responsible for a multi-million dollar bank transfer at the center of the U.S. Department of Justice bribery case against the organization. Specifically, Valcke was believed to have made a 2008 transfer of $10 million from FIFA to a bank account controlled by disgraced former international soccer official Jack Warner—and hey, what do you know, here's an actual letter from South African Football Association president Molefi Oliphant, addressed to Valcke, instructing him to send, well isn't this weird, $10 million to a Diaspora Legacy Programme to be "adminstered and implemented directly" by the President of CONCACAF.

Hang on a second here, just looking up who was president of CONCACAF in 2008. Oh. How about that? More totally coincidental weirdness. Looks like it was Jack Warner.

As the Times points out, the federal indictment unveiled last week does not allege that Valcke knew that the money was being used for a bribe, but it stands to reason that FIFA's secretary general should have had some kind of idea why $10 million was being shuffled from South Africa to the Caribbean. On other other hand, maybe it stands to reason that FIFA 's secretary general has absolutely no idea what the hell is going on! After all, this is FIFA.

In a statement, FIFA denied that Valcke had anything to do with "the initiation, approval and implementation of the above project." Which, if you notice, says nothing about Valcke having anything to do with the initiation, approval and implementation of a payoff.