Following the arrest of FIFA officials, investigation have suggested that officials from football’s world governing body FIFA took bribes totalling hundreds of millions of dollars over more than 20 years to allocate tournaments and rig elections.
One of such fingered countries is South Africa, who hosted the 2010 World Cup event. Executives of the confederation accepted bribes to help secure the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the US Attorney General Loretta Lynch has said.
But South Africa’s football governing body has strongly denied allegations by US investigators that the country organised a $10m (£6.5m) bribe to Fifa officials to host the 2010 World Cup.
The allegations are “baseless and untested”, a South Africa Football Association (Safa) spokesman said.
South Africa’s bid was run by “men of integrity”, including the late Nelson Mandela, he added.
South Africa was the first African nation to host the World Cup.
Fifa, the world football governing body, chose it ahead of Morocco.
An FBI indictment alleged that the South African government promised to pay $10m to former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner and his co-conspirators in exchange for winning the right to host the tournament.
The indictment later states that the South Africans “were unable to arrange for the payment to be made directly from government funds” so instead the $10m was sent through Fifa using funds that would otherwise have gone to South Africa to support the World Cup.
“We are disappointed at the allegations,” said Dominic Chimhavi, the Safa spokesman.
South Africa would “request proof from anyone who has evidence to the contrary to come forward”, he added.
The government has not yet commented on the allegation.
