这个人才是国际足联贪腐案中的“漏网大鱼”

    本周三，多位国际足联的官员和体育传播公司的高管遭到指控。很明显这条爆炸性新闻漏掉了一个人的名字。

    不是现任国际足联主席约瑟夫•布拉特，而是已故的前国际足联副主席胡利奥•格隆多纳。

    格隆多纳长期担任阿根廷足联（AFA）主席，还兼任国际足联的第一副主席，地位仅次于布拉特，一直到2014年7月以82岁高龄过世。格隆多纳从1988年起一直出任国际足联执行委员会的委员，曾任该组织财务委员会的主席，是布拉特多年的心腹。

    格隆多纳在位时直接掌控足球赛事的电视转播权，这也是本周国际足联官员被指控的核心问题。阿根廷体育记者赫南•卡斯蒂略这样评价格隆多纳：“他是漏网的大人物，因为他在世时掌控着国际足联所有的电视转播合约。”卡斯蒂略曾写过一本未经格隆多纳本人授权的传记《一切都会过去》，书中描写了格隆多纳生平与足坛、政界以及商界的纠葛。

    格隆多纳在阿根廷政坛是个狠角色，人称“唐•胡利奥”。1979年，当时执政军人集团的海军中将卡洛斯•拉科斯特任命他为阿根廷足联主席。该军事集团统治阿根廷的“肮脏战争”（1976-1983年）期间，国内失踪或丧生的民众多达3万人。战后格隆多纳也是最后一个经历过那段岁月的当权派。

    格隆多纳被公认为阿根廷政坛动荡的幸存者，无论是军人政府，还是左右派民选政府治下，他都能从容应对。他以铁腕作风牢牢控制阿根廷足联的财政和电视转播合约。本周三足联贪腐案的被告之中，有三人都和格隆多纳过从甚密。他们被指控的罪名是“为争夺利润丰厚的国际足球赛事传播与推广权，有组织地行贿及受贿，涉及贿赂和回扣金额超过1.5亿美元。”

    三位被告是两家阿根廷体育传播公司的高管：Torneos y Competencias的首席执行官亚历杭德罗•布尔萨科，拥有阿根廷国内许多联赛和全国大赛的转播权；以及Full Play Group的首席执行官胡戈•詹金斯和马里亚诺维奇•詹金斯兄弟，该公司掌握多家南美国家队比赛和锦标赛的转播权。

    “不论跟哪个商人做生意，最后所有的电视转播业务都得由格隆多纳经手。”卡斯蒂略说。

    格隆多纳与布尔萨科起初的合作并不顺利。2009年，阿根廷政府收回了Torneos y Competencias对阿根廷联赛的地方收费电视转播权，交由格隆多纳管理。阿根廷足联推出了政府补贴的免费电视转播节目，名为Fútbol Para Todos（意为“大众足球”）。

    但格隆多纳和布尔萨科很快结为合作伙伴，布尔萨科的公司Torneos y Competencias向“大众足球”提供节目制作服务，并掌握了赛事的国际转播权。今年年初，Torneos y Competencias还获得了阿根廷国家队友谊赛的制作权。

    格隆多纳的葬礼明星闪耀，国际足联主席布拉特、阿根廷总统克里斯蒂娜•费尔南德斯•德基什内尔和阿根廷足球明星利昂纳尔•梅西均有出席。现任国际足联副主席兼执行委员，前任南美足联主席欧亨尼奥•菲格雷多也出席了葬礼，本周三他也遭到指控。

    或许有玩笑的意思吧，委内瑞拉电视网TeleSUR在简单描述格隆多纳遗体告别场景时，配上了美国经典黑帮影片《教父》里一处葬礼画面。

    格隆多纳生前成功避开了围绕身边的腐败指控，但在决定俄罗斯和卡塔尔成为2018年与2022年世界杯主办国的过程中，他很可能觉察到了麻烦。格隆多纳之子温贝托目前执教阿根廷青年队，球队正在新西兰参加20岁以下的青年世界杯。本周三温贝托评论指控时表示：“我没觉得意外。当年我和父亲聊过，我们都知道在竞选世界杯主办城市的时候，出现了一些违规行为。”

    倘若格隆多纳仍在世，会怎样应对国际足联的丑闻？现在已经无从知晓。不过大家都知道他小指上戴着一枚尾戒，上面刻着西班牙语todopasa，意思是：一切都会过去。（财富中文网）

    译者：Pessy

    审校：夏林

    In Wednesday’s blockbuster indictment of FIFA officials and sports marketing executives, there was one name glaringly unmentioned.

    No, it was not Sepp Blatter. It was Julio Grondona.

    As the longtime head of Argentina’s soccer federation, the AFA, Grondona served as FIFA’s senior vice president—Blatter’s No. 2– until his death in July 2014 at the age of 82. A member of FIFA’s executive committee from 1988 to his death and a former chair of the organization’s finance committee, Grondona was a long-time confidant of Blatter.

    He also exerted direct control over the television rights at the center of Wednesday’s indictments. “He’s the great missing man because, basically, he was the one who managed all the television contracts at FIFA while he was alive,” said Hernán Castillo, an Argentine sports journalist and the author of Todo Pasa, an unauthorized biography of Grondona’s life at the nexus of soccer, business, and politics.

    Known as “Don Julio,” Grondona cut a fearsome figure in the Argentine political landscape. Appointed to head the AFA in 1979 by Vice Admiral Carlos Lacoste, one of the leaders of the military junta that ruled Argentina during the Dirty War (1976 to 1983) that left up to 30,000 people disappeared or dead, he was the last major figure from that period still in power.

    Grondona was known as a survivor, someone who could get along with military rulers as well as civilian governments of both the right and the left. He also controlled the Argentine league’s finances and TV contracts with an iron fist. That put him in close contact with three of those indicted on Wednesday for allegedly having “systematically paid and agreed to pay well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to obtain lucrative media and marketing rights to international soccer tournaments.”

    Those three were Alejandro Burzaco, the head of Torneos y Competencias, an Argentine sports marketing business that had the rights to many Argentine league and national team games; and Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, who ran Full Play Group, an Argentine sports marketing business that holds the TV rights for several South American national teams and tournaments.

    “All TV business with whatever businessperson passed through Grondona’s hands,” said Castillo.

    Grondona’s relationship with Burzaco had a rocky start. In 2009, the Argentine government took the local pay-TV rights for the Argentine league away from Torneos y Competencias and gave them to Grondona and the AFA to start a government-subsidized free TV broadcast scheme called Fútbol Para Todos (Soccer for Everyone).

    But soon the two built a working relationship, and Burzaco’s company provided production services to Fútbol Para Todos and held the international rights for the games. As of the beginning of this year, the company also held the production rights to friendly games for the Argentine national team.

    Grondona’s funeral services were attended by Sepp Blatter, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi. Also present was Eugenio Figueredo, a current FIFA vice president and executive committee member and former CONMEBOL president, who was indicted on Wednesday.

    Presumably in jest, the Venezuela-based television network TeleSUR briefly illustrated a story about Grondona’s sendoff with a funeral scene image from The Godfather.

    Grondona managed to avoid lasting corruption indictments during his lifetime, but he may very well have known that something untoward was going on in the selection of Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Commenting from New Zealand on Wednesday, where he is coaching Argentina’s under-20 soccer World Cup, Grondona’s son, Humberto, said of the indictments, “I’m not surprised. From what I spoke about at the time with my father, we knew of certain irregularities that had happened with the elections in the cities for the World Cup.”

    It’s impossible to know how Grondona would have reacted to Wednesday’s news. He was known to wear a pinkie ring with the words “todopasa” inscribed. The translation: “everything passes.”