The South African Football Association said yesterday it wants to meet FIFA within a few days to discuss the controversial awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany. A 12-11 victory for Germany over South Africa on July 6th was overshadowed by the abstention of Oceania delegate Charles Dempsey from the final round of voting at FIFA House in Zurich.
Had Dempsey followed the mandate of his region and backed South Africa once England had been eliminated, a 12-12 tie would have left the casting vote with FIFA president and strong South Africa supporter Sepp Blatter. Dempsey, from New Zealand, cited "intolerable pressure" for his decision and has since quit as president of the Oceania Football Confederation and as a member of the decision-making FIFA executive committee.
South African World Cup bid chairman Irvin Khoza told reporters visits by him and other officials to Belgium and Australia had created the impression there were options worth following. Khoza refused to say whether South Africa would seek a new round of voting, a possibility ruled out by Blatter last week in an interview with an American television channel.
"FIFA is a family and if I promise one of my sons a bicycle and cannot give it to him, he must wait until I can give it to him. Otherwise, I may give it to one of my daughters," the president said. Khoza and bid chief executive Danny Jordaan were in Belgium last week for talks with Jean-Louis Dupont, the lawyer who successfully sued European governing body UEFA on behalf of Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman.
This led to the Bosman ruling, which makes a player a free agent once his contract with a club expires. "I feel encouraged after our discussions with Dupont and we certainly have the basis for taking the issue forward. There are three options and I feel we can pursue any of them," Khoza said.
Jordaan also travelled to Australia for talks with senior Oceania official Sakhu Khan from Fiji and said he was gathering information ahead of a possible legal challenge to the decision. "It is not sour grapes. We are ensuring we do not let the matter rest until we have done our best to discover what really happened," Jordaan told reporters.
Arsene Wenger has emphatically blocked a £5 million sterling bid from Sunderland to sign Arsenal's England midfielder Ray Parlour. Arsenal manager Wenger said: "Ray is not for sale. He is going nowhere. It is a real nonsense to even suggest that he is and we don't want to sell our English players." Wenger has also expressed confidence that Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars will not move to Barcelona.
Portuguese midfielder Luis Figo will join European champions Real Madrid from arch-rivals Barcelona today according to Real's new president Florentino Perez. In an interview in the newspaper AS, published on Saturday, Perez boasted: "Monday, Figo is mine. We'll pay the money to the league and we will present him as a Real Madrid player."
Real, armed with around $31 million from the sale of Nicolas Anelka to Paris Saint Germain, will have to cough up $60 million plus value-added-tax at 16 per cent to the league in order to release Figo from his contractual obligations to Barcelona.
