Jeux Sans Frontières

[CFuller]

13 minutes ago, mark wilson27 said:

CFuller well done on another brilliant story. To say this has been a top class and well written story would be an understatement.

Looking forward to seeing you have up your sleeve next

Thank you, Mark. This story's not quite finished yet. I'll be wrapping up the off-the-pitch storylines involving Bambini et al over the course of this week, and then that'll be all I wrote.

You might remember me hinting at another FM16 story a few months ago in the Community Thread. That's still in the works, but it's a matter of finding the time to write it up. I'm hoping to get that ready to start publishing at the back end of this year or at the start of 2017.

[CFuller]

The Aftermath: Part 1

As first runs went, the FIFA World Championship's inaugural edition had been - by most accounts - a success.

 

FIFA had promised plenty of excitement and drama, and this competition had those qualities in spades. Over the course of 11 months, 216 national teams had competed in 427 matches, spanning around 28 days' worth of football, and 1,156 goals had been scored. After all that, only one team remained - Portugal, who were crowned world champions for the first time after beating Argentina 1-0 in the Final.

 

Of course, the new World Championship still had its critics, and it was never going to please everyone - supporter, competitor, executive, or otherwise. That said, a wide-ranging survey of football figures and followers found that around 64% preferred the World Championship format to the old World Cup. As far as FIFA were concerned, their major gamble had paid off.

 

One man who had come out of this competition with plenty of credit was Gio Bambini - the FIFA President, and the father of the World Championship. Though he was still under intense scrutiny over accusations of corruption, Bambini's big idea had reinvigorated international football, and he was very popular with fellow dignitaries before, during, and after the Final at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis.

 

That said, his decision to hand the João Havelange Trophy over to Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo while suspended from the FIFA Presidency had caused a stir. Interim FIFA President Issa Hayatou had been expected to carry out the trophy presentation before Bambini stepped in at the last moment, effectively stealing Hayatou's role.

 

As Ronaldo triumphantly lifted the trophy with tears streaming down his cheeks, and his Portuguese team-mates celebrated enthusiastically, Hayatou stood silenty, with an expression of fury written across his face. Almost as soon as the trophy had started to be handed across to each Portuguese player one-by-one, Hayatou stormed out of the presentation area and made his feelings about Bambini perfectly clear.

 

"Bambini is an arrogant, egocentric buffoon," the Cameroonian told an aide in French. "He always wants to be the centre of attention. He has to be removed from office now, before he embarrasses FIFA any more."

 

Hayatou was out of the Stade de France and heading for the hotel within 10 minutes of the presentation ceremony. In stark contrast, Bambini stayed behind for well over half an hour to personally thank his fellow VIPs - among whom were Presidents, Prime Ministers, royals, and major show-business figures - for attending.

 

It wasn't until just after 11:00pm local time that Bambini departed the stadium, outside of which his presidential limousine was waiting to pick him up. His chauffeur had been standing impatiently beside the limo for some time.

 

As Bambini - flanked by security guards, as always when outside in public - walked towards the limo, the chauffeur came forward and screamed at him, "You have to hurry, Mr President! We are already late! I could lose my-"

 

The chauffeur was mid-sentence when, just a few seconds after the local time reached 11:04pm, a huge explosion tore through the centre of the limousine.

 

The chauffeur, Bambini, and the guards were all knocked to the ground by the sheer force of the explosion, which sent debris hurtling across a radius of several hundred yards just outside the Stade de France.

 

As many people around the stadium fled for their lives, emergency services were immediately called to what appeared to be a major terrorist incident, in which the head of football's governing body had been targeted.

[CFuller]

The Aftermath: Part 2

Shortly after 11:04pm on 3 July 2016, the limousine of FIFA President Gio Bambini exploded outside the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. Bambini and his guards were just approaching the limo when the explosion took place, as Bambini was running late after meeting several VIPs following the World Championship Final.

 

The limo had been completely destroyed, and Bambini's chauffeur had sustained injuries to his left arm and his back. The President himself suffered some bruising but was otherwise uninjured. Incredibly, there were no fatalities.

 

A huge media frenzy ensued in the minutes immediately following the explosion. Unconfirmed reports of an assassination attempt on the FIFA President swept across Twitter and major press outlets, almost completely overshadowing Portugal's World Championship triumph. Some reporters speculated that Bambini had been targeted by ISIL, but they would later be proven wrong.

 

Shortly after midnight, FIFA's press officer released a statement confirming that Bambini's limousine had been "attacked", but that the President himself was "safe and sound".

 

An investigation into the explosion began in the early hours of Monday morning. The Police Nationale arrived on the scene and cordoned off the Stade de France.

 

They quickly identified evidence of a bomb inside the burnt-out shell of the limousine. It appeared that the bomb had been placed underneath one of the passenger seats, and rigged with a timing device that activated the bomb after a certain amount of time had passed.

 

Had President Bambini not held himself up by meeting all his VIPs before leaving the Stade de France, and had he got into his limo when he was scheduled to, he would most definitely have been killed. The French police ascertained that this was no accident - Bambini had been deliberately targeted.

 

Bambini's chauffeur was treated for his injuries at the American Hospital of Paris overnight. He was discharged early on Monday afternoon, at which point the police called him in for questioning.

 

The chauffeur gave his name as Abdelmehdi Amarache, and handed an officer the passport of a 36-year-old French-Algerian man born in Paris who bore that name.

 

Despite the man's insistence that he was indeed who he said he was, suspicions quickly grew about his true identity. For one, his face looked significantly older than the photograph in the passport, which had only been renewed a year earlier, suggested. For another, 'Amarache' spoke French in a staccato and appeared to have only an elementary vocabulary of that language. He sure didn't speak like a local.

 

This man was not, then, Abdelmehdi Amarache. Background checks and DNA samples helped to identify him as Ilzat Ibragimov - a 42-year-old Kyrgyzstani national living in northern Paris. Ibragimov was already well known to the Parisian police, having previously spent time in prison for two separate charges of betting fraud and assault.

 

At first, Ibragimov was reluctant to co-operate with the French authorities. He denied attempting to assassinate Bambini, and put the explosion down to the engine blowing up. However, the epicentre of the explosion had already been located underneath the passenger seating, NOT in the bonnet. Police could therefore dismiss Ibragimov's claims straight off the bat.

 

As the police were interviewing their number one suspect, Amarache's wife Samira arrived at the station to report her husband as being missing. She was taken to the cell where the suspect was being held, and she then confirmed that the man in custody was not Amarache.

 

A Paris-wide search for the real Amarache quickly went underway. Hundreds of buildings across the city were searched, including Ibragimov's apartment, but Amarache could not be found. While searching Ibragimov's apartment, police seized his computer and several USB flash drives. Significantly, one of those USB drives contained a PDF file that detailed how to assemble a car bomb.

 

A few hours later, a CCTV operator in Paris' 20th arrondissement provided police with a major lead regarding the Amarache case. On Sunday afternoon, one of the CCTV cameras in that area of eastern Paris had recorded footage of a limousine driving into the car park of a former warehouse. Although the number plate was not visible, the limo appeared to be of a similar model to the FIFA President's.

 

Several police officers and an ambulance were sent to the warehouse as the search for Amarache intensified. A couple of policewomen eventually discovered the missing man on the top floor. Wearing just his underpants, the man was gagged and bound to a chair. He was also semi-conscious and - seemingly - very dehydrated.

 

The officers rescued the kidnapee and took him out of the warehouse before he was swiftly given medical care and taken to hospital. He regained full consciousness later that evening, and by the following afternoon, he was ready to speak to the police about his ordeal.

 

The man confirmed that he was indeed Abdelmehdi Amarache - a well-respected chauffeur of several years' standing who had been charged with escorting Bambini to and from the Stade de France on the day of the World Championship Final.

 

Amarache was just about to head off to work for that day when a stranger held him at gunpoint, physically forced him into the passenger's side of the limo, and then drove him off to the abandoned warehouse.

 

After arriving at the warehouse, the kidnapper knocked Amarache out, stripped him of his clothes, and tied him to a chair on the top floor of the disused building. Amarache was left for dead, and had the police arrived even just a couple of hours before they actually did, he would surely have perished.

 

A few days after his rescue, Amarache was taken to the police station and asked to identify - from a line-up of several suspects - the man that had kidnapped him. After a couple of seconds, he pointed at Ibragimov - the Kyrgyzstani criminal who resembled a slightly older doppelgänger of himself.

 

Ilzat Ibragimov was subsequently charged with terrorism offences, kidnapping and assaulting Amarache, and also with the attempted murder of Bambini. Police could not yet place Ibragimov with a motive to kill Bambini, but they wouldn't have to shift through much evidence before finding one.

 

Ibragimov's apartment contained a number of vital documents that linked him with one of the world's most notorious football match-fixers. He had received a number of letters and emails from the man in question, and his bank statements detailed several large payments - of between €25,000 and €200,000 - from him. That man was Ruslan Sayfutdinov.

 

When faced with strong evidence of his links with Sayfutdinov, Ibragimov caved in. He admitted that he had worked for Sayfutdinov's European match-fixing syndicate over several years. He also revealed that the Russian had ordered him - as a Paris resident - to assassinate Bambini on the night of the FIFA World Championship Final.

 

Ibragimov's testimony would help to further incriminate his former boss, who was already awaiting trial in Switzerland for the murder of Marco Sepe. Sayfutdinov had claimed that he'd killed Sepe because of his involvement in a FIFA 'plot' to prevent Russia from being knocked out of the World Championship early. Slowly and steadily, though, his claims were falling apart at the seams.

 

For one, Interpol had been in contact with several Asian bookmakers, with whom Sayfutdinov said that he had placed bets on Russia losing to South Africa in Moscow. The bookies' records confirmed the opposite - Sayfutdinov had actually staked money on Russia winning.

 

Sayfutdinov claimed that he'd been tipped off about Sepe's attempts to bribe South Africa's team by an insider in Switzerland who had seen Sepe with Bambini at a Zurich restaurant. The restaurant owner was interviewed by police, but he revealed that neither Bambini nor Sepe had dined there regularly. Other regular diners who were around at the time of the alleged sighting could not recall either of them being in attendance.

 

It seemed, then, that Marco Sepe was not working AGAINST Ruslan Sayfutdinov, after all, but FOR him. However, that left one question still unresolved - WHY did Sayfutdinov murder Sepe?

 

An Italian match-fixer had a good idea as to why. Enrico Chiaravalle was a former employee at Catania whose inside information had helped Sayfutdinov to win huge bets on rigged Serie B matches in 2015. He presented the authorities with the recording of a private conversation they had had in mid-April, when the Moscow match-fixing allegations had just been leaked to the press.

 

One of the subjects of that conversation was Sepe, with whom Chiaravalle had worked at an advertising agency about a decade earlier. Chiaravalle mentioned in passing that Sepe had recently broken up with an ex-boyfriend, who just happened to be the leader of world football. Sayfutdinov apparently didn't know about Sepe's sexuality, but this revelation sent him into a fit of rage.

 

"That c***-sucking son of a b****!" Sayfutdinov was heard saying in the conversation, which Chiaravalle had recorded without his friend's consent. "He's already put me in the s***, now that the Moscow bribe is in the news! And now you've told me that he's an evil f****t as well!

 

"I'm going to kill him, Rico. I'M GOING TO F***ING KILL HIM! And I'll kill Bambini as well!"

 

This conversation could not be submitted as evidence against Sayfutdinov, as it had been obtained illegally. It did, though, shine a light on what sort of man this 46-year-old Russian was.

 

Sayfutdinov's mental health was now under intense scrutiny. He was ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment from a specialist in Zurich before he could stand trial.

 

Sayfutdinov was assessed by one of Switzerland's leading psychoanalysts, whose subsequent report on him detailed symptoms of schizophrenia and psychosis. He was also said to have a strong hatred of homosexuals, but that was not the main reason why he ordered for Bambini to be killed.

 

He confessed to the psychoanalyst that he was "filled with rage" after learning that the 2018 World Cup had been cancelled and replaced with the World Championship. Four group games and two knockout matches at that World Cup were due to take place in Kazan prior to the cancellation. Sayfutdinov had always dreamed of watching the World Cup in his home city, and the restructuring of international football had deprived him of that dream. As the newly-elected FIFA President who had ushered in those reforms, Sayfutdinov held Bambini responsible.

 

Despite all that, the psychoanalyst concluded that Sayfutdinov was "likely not criminally insane". He is therefore set to stand trial for Sepe's murder in the first few months of 2017. He has also been charged with conspiring to assassinate Bambini and will be extradited to France to stand trial on that count later on in 2017.

 

As for Ibragimov, he is - as of December 2016 - incarcerated in a Parisian prison, awaiting a trial for several offences relating to the attempted murders of Amarache and Bambini. That trial is scheduled to start in March 2017.

[CFuller]

Epilogue

July 2016 represented the end of the beginning for this new era of international football. It also marked the beginning of the end for Gio Bambini's FIFA Presidency.

 

FIFA's Ethics Committee has conducted a major investigation into allegations of corruption during the qualifying stages of the 2016 World Championship. The governing body's suspended chief was under particular scrutiny.

 

Hundreds of people in several countries were interviewed as part of the investigation, which lasted just over a month. On 29 July 2016, Hans-Joachim Eckert - the chairman of the Ethics Committee's adjudicatory chamber - released the report and its findings.

 

The most high-profile allegation surrounded claims that Russia's Round 5 Leg 2 match against South Africa was fixed in favour of the hosts. The report found that suspected match-fixer Marco Sepe had never been employed by FIFA, nor had he been instructed by any FIFA officials to bribe the South African team on the night before the game.

 

The committee also dismissed allegations that FIFA had tried to influence the outcome of the second leg of Cameroon vs Uzbekistan in Round 4. An Uzbek player had claimed that he and his colleagues were threatened before the game in Yaoundé. The report found that the protagonists were part of a large mob in the capital, but added that none of them had received any contact from any officials from either FIFA or the Fédération Camerounaise de Football.

 

In the third and final case, a Welsh referee claimed that he'd been ordered to fix a couple of matches in Qatar's favour. As far as that particular case was concerned, though, the Ethics Committee's findings were "inconclusive".

 

Eckert subsequently announced that the investigation was over, and that there was no reason for any FIFA officials to be charged with misconduct.

 

Hundreds of football fans complained of a "whitewash" on social media, while British journalist Oliver Holt - writing for the Mail on Sunday - declared, "FIFA may have removed the tumour of Sepp Blatter last year, but the cancer of corruption is still evident within its system. The long-term prognosis for global football does not look positive."

 

President Bambini would not be impeached, then... but he wasn't yet out of the woods.

 

FIFA Vice President Issa Hayatou, who had stood in for Bambini during the Swiss-Italian's suspension, was a long-time foe of his boss. With the backing of several other prominent officials at the governing body, he called for a FIFA Council meeting to be held as early as possible. On the agenda was the organisation of an Extraordinary Congress, and the start of what would be a second presidential election in as many years.

 

Naturally, Bambini voted against Hayatou's motion - after all, to do otherwise would be akin to chickens voting for Colonel Sanders, or the UK Independence Party voting to stay within the European Union.

 

Just like with the votes that had determined Bambini's election as FIFA President and the approval of his plans to revolutionise international football, the result of this vote was very close. Of the 23 FIFA Council members who voted, 13 were in favour of a new presidential election, and 10 were against.

 

Bambini had effectively lost a vote of confidence from the FIFA Council. In late February 2017, representatives of FIFA's 217 member associations would convene in Zurich to vote for the next President... and the name of the current office-holder would not be on the ballot papers.

 

Three days after the FIFA Council voted for an Extraordinary Congress, Bambini released a statement to the press, starting, "As the 9th President of FIFA, I have implemented major changes to FIFA's international football calendar that have brought all of our member associations closer together. The first World Championship was an overwhelming success, and I am sure that the second, which will begin in the next few days, will bring more joy and excitement to football lovers from all over the world.

 

"As you well know, the last 15 months for me have been tremendously exciting and humbling on a professional level, but very difficult on a personal level. I have lost a very dear companion, and my reputation has been damaged by serious aspersions that have been cast on my name. These circumstances have badly impacted on my ability to perform my presidential duties.

 

"After the recent vote by the FIFA Council, I have determined that my role as President is untenable. Akin to the samurai custom of hara-kiri in ancient Japan, I shall fall on my own sword, and tender my resignation from the post.

 

"The Council will organise an Extraordinary Congress here on 23 February 2017, where our member associations shall vote on who becomes the 10th FIFA President. I will not be a candidate for that election, although I will continue to exercise my current functions until a new President is elected."

 

The previous FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, had clung onto power for four consecutive terms over the course of 17 years. Gio Bambini had not even served half of his first term, and he was already on his way out.

 

Bambini's impending exit left the future of the World Championship - and FIFA itself - rather uncertain.

 

Although the first World Championship had been successful, and the second was about to begin, its status after 2017 was up in the air. Some leading footballing figures wanted a return to the old international calendar, complete with a quadrennial World Cup and supplementary continental championships. On the other side of the debate were those who preferred to stick with Bambini's World Championship idea, although a large number of those wanted brand new continental competitions to replace the global showpiece in alternating seasons.

 

FIFA had never been a more divided federation, and these corruption allegations, although unfounded, had threatened to tear it apart. Rumours had been going around for years that leading UEFA members were planning to stage a mass breakaway from FIFA and form a new global body for world football. In September 2016, Reinhard Grindel - the President of the Deutscher Fußball-Bund - publicly confirmed for the first time that he had held talks with several of his continental counterparts about taking what would be a very drastic step.

 

The 'breakaway' was one major issue that was looming over FIFA. Another controversial talking point concerned Russia's decision to formally boycott the 2017 World Championship.

 

The official word from the Russian Football Union was that they had pulled their team out of the 2017 tournament "to rebuild in preparation for the 2018 World Championship", the latter stages of which it would host. Some speculated that Russia had been withdrawn from the competition after four of their players failed doping tests at various points during the 2016 event.

 

Others suspected that they decided to 'boycott' this tournament because of 'broken promises' made by world football's governing body. In other words, those conspiracy theorists believed that FIFA had indeed attempted to rig the 2016 World Championship so that Russia would get to at least the Quarter Finals, only for England to scupper their plans in Round 7. That cloud of suspicion would not be drifting away from FIFA HQ any time soon.

 

It seemed that things could not possibly get any worse for a much-loathed federation who'd lost millions in withdrawn sponsorship deals, let alone the faith of countless football supporters from all over the world.

 

Then, in November 2016, came the statement that almost nobody wanted to hear.

 

"I am announcing today that I - Greg Dyke - will be standing as a candidate to become the next FIFA President."

[CFuller]

FIN

Merci beaucoup pour la lecture.

 

"If looks could kill, they probably will, in games without frontiers, wars without tears."

Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers (1980)

[EvilDave]

Bravo Chris, an excellent conclusion to a well-told tale - my only disappointment was Portugal's success! Your tying together of real-world events and your own arcs came off really well, this has been a great story. Well done!