Peters' Fifa plan for Pacific conflicts shouted down

Winston Peters

Foreign Minister Winston Peters' idea to solve domestic conflicts in the Pacific by working with soccer's world governing body to promote the code in the Islands has been criticised.

Opening the annual Otago Foreign Policy School, Mr Peters said Fifa planned to spend US$105 million ($174 million) in Oceania over the next four years, the Press reported yesterday.

But Fifa head Sepp Blatter is being investigated by police in Switzerland, where the world body is based, over alleged secret deals to repay more than US$1.8 million in bribes to soccer officials, a BBC documentary claims.

British journalist Andrew Jennings, who made the documentary and was in the Dunedin audience, described Fifa as "stinkingly, horribly corrupt" and said Mr Peters had been poorly briefed.

"I can only think his aides haven't briefed him properly. 'Hey, but there is all this money coming in and isn't that great? Aren't they kind?'" Jennings said.

He described the money as "basically building offices for officials".

In his speech, Mr Peters said conflicts in countries such as the Solomon Islands, where New Zealand troops are serving, might be best solved by bringing communities together through soccer.

Working with Fifa would be a "glorious chance" to do that.

When concerns were expressed by the audience about the corruption allegations, Mr Peters admitted the sports body's reputation had been impugned.

"Let me just say you have got every right to suspect, on the past performance of Fifa, that it is not the least corrupt institution in the world and that sound governance has not been its major objective in the past.

"But the present head of Fifa seems to have been different. And before you shake your head, he has made some specific public announcements that he will have to carry through."

Mr Blatter had decried the BBC programme's allegations as outrageous and pledged to crack down on corruption.

- NZPA