Dutch order audit and ethical investigation into bribery claims

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Netherlands football association on Tuesday will submit itself to an ethical investigation by FIFA and ordered an independent forensic audit into its unsuccessful joint bid with Belgium to host the 2018 World Cup finals, following newspaper allegations of bribery.

The KNVB said its lawyers and financial controllers had studied all documentation from the bid, which saw the two countries lose out to Russia, and had found no wrongdoing.

But is also said it was waiting for more details from the Belgian football association in order “to get a total picture”.

“Furthermore, the KNVB will turn to the ethics committee of FIFA, which has previously evaluated the Holland-Belgium bid and which was also subjected to integrity checks by the American researcher (Michael) Garcia,” a statement said.

“In order to ensure completeness and accuracy, the KNVB wants this all to be checked by an external audit firm. It is expected that this process will be completed in the first quarter of 2016. When the independent investigation is completed, the KNVB will report back,” it added.

The Dutch daily De Volkskrant earlier this month said the Netherlands and Belgium in 2009 paid a lobbyist closely linked to a former FIFA vice president to help garner votes for its bid.

The newspaper said a sum of 10,000 euros (£7,357) was given to Amadou Diallo, who at the time was affiliated to ousted Asian football chief Mohammed Bin Hamman, later banned from the sport for life for alleged corruption.

"Diallo at the time was bin Hamman's right-hand man. The payment therefore transgressed FIFA's code of conduct," the paper said.

"The code explicitly states that people affiliated to FIFA managers were not allowed to receive money from bidding teams," it added, based on documents in its possession.

The joint bid, which cost 10 million euros, went up against a joint bid from Portugal and Spain plus England and Russia in the vote for the host of the 2018 finals. England were eliminated after the first round and the Dutch-Belgian bid finish third in the second round, won by Russia.

Prosecutors in New York and Zurich are examining whether there were irregularities in the awarding of the rights to hold that tournament and the 2022 competition, which went to Qatar.

(Reporting by Mark Gleeson; Editing by Dominic Evans; [e-mail]; [phone]; Reuters Messaging: Reuters Messaging: [e-mail])