Born: 4 March, 1921, in Glasgow.
Died: 24 June, 2008, in Auckland, New Zealand, aged 87. CHARLIE Dempsey CBE will be remembered by many as the Fifa executive committee member whose abstention from voting prevented South Afric
a hosting the 2006 World Cup finals, but the former Royal Navy petty officer from Glasgow leaves a far more significant legacy to football in the country he adopted as his home and where he became a greatly loved figure.
For Dempsey, who emigrated to New Zealand with his wife, Anne, in 1952, was the driving force behind the emergence of football as a credible professional sport in a land where it has almost always been forced to live in the shadow of the national obsession of rugby union.
That changed, if briefly, for one summer in 1982, as the All Whites, as the New Zealand international football team are known, stole the limelight from the All Blacks when they took part in the World Cup finals for the first and, so far, only time.
As irony would dictate, New Zealand opened their campaign at the finals in Spain against the land of Dempsey's birth. Scotland won the match in Malaga 5-2, with the two New Zealand goals ultimately costing the Scots qualification from a group which also included Brazil and the USSR.
New Zealand finished bottom of the group without a point, but by simply being there had realised a dream nurtured by Dempsey since he had first entered football administration as a councillor with the Auckland FA in 1960.
Born Charles John Dempsey in the Calton district of Glasgow, Dempsey had an unremarkable playing career which began with Milngavie Amateurs in his native city. The outbreak of the Second World War saw him enlist in the Royal Navy, with which he saw active service. He maintained his love of football, playing for the navy's representative side and for Gillingham when based in England.
Dempsey, who married Anne in 1942, arrived in Auckland with his wife and their two young daughters in 1952 and two years later set up what became a successful building and construction company. He continued to play football locally and, after hanging up his boots, remained actively involved with Eastern Suburbs FC, becoming club president in 1961.
Three years later he was elected as a councillor with the New Zealand FA and quickly became a dynamic and ambitious administrator on behalf of the whole Oceania football region.
It was a backwater of the world game at the time but Dempsey was instrumental in the formation of the Oceania Football Confederation in 1964, a development which allowed Australia and New Zealand to gain greater recognition and support from Fifa.
The OFC, which under Dempsey's presidency saw its membership rise from an initial four countries to 11, was eventually awarded full confederation status by Fifa in 1996. Three years later, to Dempsey's great delight, New Zealand hosted the World Under-17 Cup.
His greatest moment, however, remained the night of 10 January, 1982, in Singapore, when New Zealand faced China in a play-off to decide the final qualification place for that year's World Cup finals. In front of 80,000 spectators, the All Whites triumphed 2-1 and Dempsey was not ashamed to admit he wept tears of joy. On returning to the team hotel, he gave team manager John Adshead NZ$500 to celebrate with the players, then retired to his room.
"I sat in darkness," Dempsey later recalled. "I'm not sure for how long. I was empty; there was nothing there. We had been through so much to achieve this."
Hugely popular with the New Zealand players, Dempsey raised the funds which allowed them to undertake the trip to Singapore for the play-off and for several other foreign trips which broadened their international experience.
Brian Turner, a member of the 1982 World Cup squad, is just one of those with warm memories of the man who never lost his Glaswegian accent.
"If Charlie hadn't been around, we wouldn't have got to the World Cup," said Turner. "He was a real character. When we went abroad, he would always travel with a couple of cartons of Guinness. The kit man was always told to make sure the Guinness was there for Charlie."
Aside from a few pints of Guinness, Dempsey's other form of relaxation was golf, which he played as often as his football and business commitments allowed. He was awarded the CBE in 1982.
It was at the 2000 Fifa executive committee meeting in Zurich to decide the host nation for the 2006 World Cup finals that Dempsey reluctantly achieved global prominence. The OFC had indicated its support for South Africa's candidacy, but Dempsey abstained, claiming he was placed under "intolerable pressure".
Germany won the vote 12-11, but had Dempsey given his backing to South Africa it would have been awarded the tournament on the casting vote of Fifa president Sepp Blatter.
Although Dempsey later resigned from the OFC and Fifa, he maintained he had done nothing wrong and had no regrets. South Africa was subsequently given the right to host the 2012 finals and made their peace with Dempsey before his death this week.
Danny Jordaan, head of the South African World Cup organising committee, said: "I had the opportunity to speak to Charles in Sydney recently and I thanked him for his support and invited him to come to South Africa for the World Cup in 2010.
"I told him we were not angry with him as us South Africans don't believe in building the future based on the grievances of the past. He was very happy that we embraced him as a friend of the World Cup and he wished us well."
Charlie is survived by his wife and their two daughters.
The full article contains 974 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
