Israeli link could scupper Tokyo’s FIFA bid

ANT KATZ

Prominent South African businessman and Struggle icon Tokyo Sexwale has thrown his hat into the ring for the presidency of world football association, FIFA, to replace outgoing incumbent Sepp Blatter early next year. But a purportedly “shady Israeli connection” could put a spoke in the wheel of his ambition.

Sexwale’s long association with FIFA culminated in his appointment by the organisation several months ago to lead a monitoring committee to oversee the development of football in Palestine.

He was also tasked with monitoring the mending of relations between the Israeli Football Association (FA) and the Palestinian FA. Blatter said at the time that Sexwale’s “own experiences and expertise in community reconciliation and conflict resolution in South Africa” made him well-placed for the task. Sexwale recognised that the assignment “is no easy walk and shall have to be approached with sensitivity and circumspection”.

But Sexwale may have an Achilles’ heel in aiming for the FIFA top job – a rumoured “shady Israeli connection”.

Sexwale has promised to add much needed “transparency and accountability” to FIFA, should he get the nod, but his detractors and many naysayers in South Africa, point to the often controversial international business dealings of his own business conglomerates, mainly through Mvelaphanda and its involvement and partnership with Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler in the DRC, where Gertler is a close friend of President Joseph Kabila.

RIGHT: Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler

In the Israeli media, Gertler’s name has become synonymous with “grabbing and flipping” – a process of buying mining concessions, if needs be stripping others of their prior concessions, and then selling the concessions at a large profit

LEFT: Tokyo Sexwale on being handed the hot potato by FIFI’s Sepp Blatter mid-year of finding a path to peace between the Israeli and Palestinian FAs

Sexwale had launched a complicated web of offshore vehicles in places known as “financial secrecy havens”. In 2008 he launched a Guernsey vehicle, Africa Management Limited (AML), which loaned money to Gertler and acquired the Kolwezi copper and cobalt mine in the DRC in 2010 after Kabila’s government stripped the rights to it from Canadian company First Quantum.

Some months later, Gertler re-sold the mine at a huge profit, some of which went to AML. The deal, and the involvement of hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management, a partner in AML, attracted the interest of US authorities. Gertler and Mvelaphanda have denied wrongdoing, but Sexwale has consistently refused to account for his links to the deal.

In the same year Sexwale’s right-hand man, Mark Willcox, dealt with Gertler over two oil blocks in the DRC. Kabila controversially signed the oil blocks over and stripped an Irish oil major Tullow and SA’s Divine Inspiration Group of their previously-held rights. Both offshore companies had used Mvelaphanda addresses.

Sexwale has a long history with FIFA and football. During the dark years on Robben Island, he got involved in the running of the Makana Football Association, an informal league of political prisoners. The association was to be given honorary FIFA membership in 2007.

• Forbes lists Dan Gertler as the 1190th richest person in the world with a net worth of R16.874-billion as of Tuesday 10 November 2015

Dan Gertler in his Israeli office