Fifa today said it will investigate reports that its former secretary-general Michel Zen-Ruffinen has identified executive committee members who were open to bribery, adding the claims to a lengthening list that threatens to derail the vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Before a pivotal week in the increasingly chaotic run-in to the campaign, when all the bidders including England will gather in Zurich for the International Football Arena conference and the Fifa executive committee will decide the rules governing the vote on 2 December, the new claims will add to the pressure on the president, Sepp Blatter.
Zen-Ruffinen, who was forced out of Fifa in 2002 after accusing Blatter of mismanagement, is alleged to have told Sunday Times undercover reporters that several of the 24 members of the Fifa executive committee were open to corruption.
According to the report, supported by secretly filmed footage of a meeting with undercover reporters posing as lobbyists, Zen-Ruffinen, a lawyer, named two Fifa executive committee members who could be bought and a third of whom he said: "He's the guy you can have with the ladies and not with money."
Zen-Ruffinen, who allegedly offered to work as a fixer for the fictional lobbying company, described a fourth member as "the biggest gangster you will find on earth" and said he believed the minimum fee for this person would be $500,000 (£319,000).
Zen-Ruffinen told the Sunday Times that many of his comments were simply "impressions" of the goings-on inside Fifa circles and that he had "exaggerated" comments to keep the businessmen interested. He said he was "totally against" bribery and offered only to make introductions.
The Nigerian executive committee member, Amos Adamu, and the Oceania representative, Reynald Temarii, remain provisionally suspended by Fifa while its ethics committee investigates allegations that they effectively offered to sell their vote. Both Adamu and Temarii, provisionally suspended along with four other Fifa officials, have protested their innocence.
The 2018 contest to host the World Cup is between England, Russia and the joint bids of Belgium-Holland and Spain-Portugal. The 2022 race involves the US, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Qatar.