Bribery is part and parcel of winning media rights for sports events allege defendants in the criminal trial of six former employees of the ISL/ISMM media group, FIFA's former media partners.

From 1989 to 2001, the world’s biggest marketing company ISL/ISSM paid personal commissions – or bribes – worth an unbelievable 138 million Swiss francs (87,5 million euros) to sports officials and other persons involved in the dealing of sports TV and marketing rights.

Corruption is a touchy subject for FIFA at the moment. Recently, John McBeth from Scotland was deselected as the British associations’ FIFA vice-president after he made remarks to journalists about corruption in FIFA. General Secretary Urs Linsi has also left FIFA as president Blatter circles the wagons before FIFA must defend itself against charges of corruption when the ISL case reaches court in March next year.

Nicolás Leoz, a FIFA executive member and president of the South American football confederation Conmebol, has been accused by Swiss magistrates of receiving bribes in the amount of almost 212.000 Swiss francs. The claim comes in a Swiss investigating magistrate’s report relating to the collapse of the sports marketing company ISL/ISMM.

FIFA does not see any reason to comment further on allegations in Andrew Jennings’ book, “Foul!”, and also maintains its right not to enter into discussions with or answer to journalists who oppose FIFA and severely violates the principles of proper journalism. So replies FIFA to a letter from Play the Game which raised seven key questions in relation to Jennings’ book that was published in May this year.

A Swiss court order prevents the public from knowing exactly which FIFA officials took bribes from the now bankrupt sports marketing company, ISL. But investigative reporter Andrew Jennings now claims to know who repaid a large amount of the bribes money to the insolvent ISL-estate: It was FIFA.

Knowledge bank: ISL's serious liquidity problems in the course of 2000 and 2001 still causes great concern in the financial sector in FIFA. Since a settlement, President Blatter has maintained that FIFA has lost ‘only’ 42-46 million dollars on the ISL bankruptcy. This is a small amount compared to the 340 million dollar loss Blatter stated earlier in a letter to the 24 members of FIFA’s Executive Committee.

Knowledge bank: The following timeline traces the main incidents in the complex of cases between ISL and FIFA that have arisen in the wake of the bankruptcy of the sports marketing agency ISL.