PrintAustralian Broadcasting CorporationBroadcast: 07/07/2011Reporter: Kerri RitchieStaff within the SBS sports department allege they have been under pressure to write stories in favour of Australia's World Cup bids.
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: SBS has long prided itself on being the home of soccer coverage in this country.But 7.30 has spoken to people within the sports department at SBS who claim that football fans aren't getting the full story.
Journalists and columnists allege they've been under pressure to write pieces supporting Australia's World Cup bids. They say some of the pressure has been coming from veteran broadcaster Les Murray, the editorial supervisor at SBS Sport and a member of FIFA's ethics committee.
Kerri Ritchie reports.
DAVIDDE CORRAN, SPORTS WRITER: A lot of people have been afraid to talk about this.
KERRI RITCHIE, REPORTER: The slogan at SBS might be "Six billion stories and counting," but according to a number of current and former SBS staff who spoke on and off the record to 7:30, it seems when it comes to soccer, there are certain stories SBS would prefer not to have to tell.
CHRIS TANNER, PLAYERS' AGENT: Many of us in the game now feel that SBS doesn't seem to be as balanced in its approach to covering of football these days.
JESSE FINK, SPORTS WRITER: Things started to change for me when I began writing pieces that were critical of the Australian World Cup bid and the Australian World Cup bid strategy.
KERRI RITCHIE: Jessie Fink has worked for SBS Sport for four years. He's described on the company's website as one of Australia's most popular football writers. But Mr Fink's contract with SBS, which expired last week, isn't being renewed. Jesse Fink says he hasn't felt able to write freely.
In 2008, some SBS staff received this email from Les Murray, the editorial supervisor at SBS Sport and host of the broadcaster's soccer program, The World Game. Les Murray was writing about negative comments which had been widely reported concerning Australia's bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
LES MURRAY, HOST, THE WORLD GAME (male voiceover, email): "It is not a good look if we, SBS, the most powerful voice in football appear to talk down the bid or declare it stillborn. Given that the bid has great support in Australia, including enthusiastic support by all governments, my preferred editorial policy would be to support it."
JESSE FINK: Well to be honest, I was appalled.
KERRI RITCHIE: Les Murray went on to write in the same email:
LES MURRAY (male voiceover, email): "This is not to say we shouldn't broadcast the facts or that we shouldn't give it balanced debate."
KERRI RITCHIE: We now know Australia pulled out of the contest for 2018 and spectacularly lost its bid for 2022 at a cost of around $46 million to Australian taxpayers.
JESSE FINK: SBS has been using its own taxpayer money to suppress criticism of the bid. If we had had the full story, we might not have had the widespread public support that there was for the Australian World Cup bid.
SBS STATEMENT (female voiceover): "SBS refutes the suggestion that Les Murray instructed SBS staff to have no regard for impartiality in relation to the Australian bid to host the World Cup, nor did he instruct staff to report negatively on other nation's bids."
KERRI RITCHIE: Les Murray would not be interviewed by 7.30, but he strongly denies any impropriety.
Jesse Fink says Les Murray, who's also a member of the FIFA ethics committee, suggested to him that he write a piece on the United States bid.
JESSE FINK: I received an email from Les Murray telling me that he couldn't write a story himself, being a member of FIFA's ethics committee, but, "... you may want to respond to this Gulati clown in a blog." And Sunil Gulati was the president of the US Soccer Federation. And I humoured Murray, but I never wrote the column.
SBS STATEMENT (female voiceover): "SBS refutes the suggestion that Les Murray's position on the FIFA ethics committee conflicts with his position as SBS's editorial supervisor, Sport. Mr Fink, during his time with SBS, has expressed a range of views on matters relating to FIFA, the FFA and football generally, none of which were curtailed at the direction of Les Murray."
KERRI RITCHIE: The ABC acknowledges stories written by Mr Fink, Mr Murray and others and published by SBS which are critical of the FFA and FIFA.
Davidde Corran works as a freelancer at SBS. He's been there for five years covering soccer for The World Games program and for SBS News. Davidde Corran says he felt under pressure not to criticise Australia's World Cup bid.
DAVIDDE CORRAN: The issues I have personally had trouble with have all related to essentially the World Cup bid, Australia's World Cup bid for the 2022 World Cup and before that the 2018 World Cup. In particular, the issues - the trouble I've ran into is when covering what other consultants, Football Federation Australia, hired, Peter Hargitay.
KERRI RITCHIE: Les Murray has acknowledged on the record he's friends with European lobbyist Peter Hargitay.
Davidde Corran says when he wrote a piece for the online blog site The Roar questioning why SBS Sport had done a positive profile piece on Mr Hargitay, when others were criticising his employment by FFA, he received a scathing email from Les Murray accusing him of publicly discrediting SBS.
DAVIDDE CORRAN: It was interesting because one thing that was said to me was, "Well, if you have these things to say, we want to keep them in house, you do them through SBS."
ANDREW JENNINGS, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: What would concern me if I was an Australian taxpayer would be the friendship between Peter Hargitay and Les Murray. ... Les Murray propped him up.
KERRI RITCHIE: Football agent Chris Tanner suggests there may be good reasons why Les Murray doesn't want Peter Hargitay discussed.
CHRIS TANNER: Les Murray openly admitted that he introduced Hargitay to Frank Lowy and FFA, and with the controversy around that appointment of Hargitay and other consultants, maybe that's an area they don't want to touch.
KERRI RITCHIE: He says SBS has a lot at stake.
CHRIS TANNER: It's possibly looking to rebuild a relationship with Football Federation Australia, possibly with A League rights coming up down the track, and certainly as far as FIFA's concerned, one could only presume that Les Murray's role at FIFA and Les Murray's role at SBS creates some form of positive relationship between the two.
KERRI RITCHIE: In 2009, Les Murray sent out another directive to some staff, while warning them to take care using a particular source who'd been criticising FIFA committee member Mohammed Bin Hammam.
LES MURRAY (male voiceover, email): "Another thing to consider is that, as commercial partners to FIFA, we are not as an organisation permitted to 'defame' FIFA officials."
KERRI RITCHIE: Last month, following a scandal over bribery allegations, Mohammed Bin Hammam withdrew his bid for the FIFA presidency, leaving one candidate, the incumbent Sepp Blatter, to be elected.
UK-based investigative journalist Andrew Jennings is well-known for his reports on alleged corruption within FIFA and before that the International Olympic Committee.
ANDREW JENNINGS: I think Les Murray's directive to the SBS staff smacks of North Korea. It smacks of the Stalin world where journalists were told what they could and couldn't report. What is so bad is that it's taxpayer-funded.
KERRI RITCHIE: Despite the allegations of corruption dogging FIFA, Jesse Fink says he's received numerous emails from SBS managers telling him to stop covering the politics of football because readers are tired of it. Jesse Fink says the final straw was when a piece he wrote about the FFA was sent by his editors to the FFA for fact-checking before it was published.
JESSE FINK: I was utterly flabbergasted by it. I've never heard of anything like it. For me, that said it everything about the lack of independence at SBS.
SBS STATEMENT (female voiceover): "This blog was sent to FFA for fact-checking, not for approval. It is not normal practice for SBS to ask the FFA to approve any editorial."
KERRI RITCHIE: Jesse Fink expects speaking out now will have consequences.
LEIGH SALES: And SBS says it has clear editorial codes and guidelines covering potential conflicts of interest and it says in relation to Les Murray's position with FIFA, those guidelines have been followed.
Kerrie Ritchie reporting.
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