World football turmoil as Fifa officials arrested on corruption charges video

[Serpo]

World football turmoil as Fifa officials arrested on corruption charges http://www.stuff.co.nz/etc/designs/ffx/nz/stuff/clientlibs-all/images/icon_video.png


Last updated 08:08, May 28 2015





http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/68917913/world-football-turmoil-as-fifa-officials-arrested-on-corruption-charges


Reuters
Swiss police have arrested some of the most powerful figures in global football, announcing a criminal investigation into the awarding of the next two world cups, Duarte Garrido reports.



The world's most popular sport has been plunged into turmoil with seven powerful football figures facing extradition from Switzerland after they were arrested on US corruption charges.
The arrests of the senior Fifa officials in a morning raid at a five-star Zurich hotel mark an unprecedented blow against football's powerful governing body, which for years has been dogged by allegations of corruption but always escaped major criminal cases.
US prosecutors said they aimed to make more arrests but would not be drawn on whether Fifa president Sepp Blatter, for long the most powerful man in the sport, was a target of the probe. Blatter, 79, is standing for re-election to a fifth term at the Fifa Congress in Zurich on Friday, and Fifa said the vote would go ahead as planned.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/g/q/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349. 1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
A combination photo shows eight of the nine football officials indicted on corruption charges.



READ MORE:
* Scandal hits on eve of NZ-hosted U-20 WC (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/68918623/new-zealand-football-on-alert-as-fifa-corruption-scandal-casts-shadow-over-under20-world-cup)
* Blatter 'to root out wrongdoing' (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/68918456/sepp-blatter-promises-to-root-out-any-wrongdoing-at-fifa)
* 'Time to scrub away the stench of sleaze at Fifa'
(http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/68917044/lynch-time-to-scrub-away-the-stench-of-sleaze-at-fifa)* Fifa nine: The accused in brief (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/68918799/fifa-nine-the-men-arrested-on-corruption-charges)

US authorities said a total of nine soccer officials and five sports media and promotions executives were charged with corruption involving more than US$150 million (NZ$207m) in bribes over a period of 24 years. They said their investigation exposed complex money laundering schemes, millions of dollars in untaxed incomes and tens of millions in offshore accounts held by Fifa officials.
Swiss police arrested the seven Fifa officials and detained them pending extradition proceedings to the United States, which could take years if they contest the process.
Reuters
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch does not want to impede the 2018 Fifa World Cup, but will work with Swiss authorities in their investigation into the awarding of the event to Russia.



"As charged in the indictment, the defendants fostered a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world," FBI director James Comey said.
"Undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks, and bribes became a way of doing business at Fifa."
Separate from the US investigation, Swiss prosecutors said they had opened their own criminal proceedings against unidentified people on suspicion of mismanagement and money laundering related to the awarding of rights to host the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 event in Qatar.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/p/b/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: Ex-President of South American soccer body Conmebol Nicolas Leoz.



US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her office did not want to impede the 2018 and 2022 World Cups but looked forward to working with Swiss authorities investigating the award of the tournaments.
Ad Feedback (http://stuff.co.nz/about-stuff/advertising-feedback/?pos=storybody&adsize=300x250&area=onl.stuff.sport/football/worldgame)

"Fifa has a lot of soul searching to do," she said.
One of those indicted, former Fifa vice president Jack Warner of Trinidad, solicited US$10m (NZ$13.8m) in bribes from the South African government to host the 2010 World Cup, the US Justice Department said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/o/j/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: Former Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) president Jose Maria Marin.



Warner directed a number of co-conspirators to arrange the payment, which was eventually sent from a Fifa account in Switzerland to a Bank of America account in New York that Warner controlled, the indictment said.
Warner, former Fifa vice president and executive committee member of the Confederation of North, Central America, Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf), said in a statement that he was innocent of any charges.
The United States took jurisdiction of the case in part because the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI secured the cooperation of US citizen Chuck Blazer, a former top Fifa official, who US officials said had not paid taxes for years.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/o/i/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: Suspended Fifa executive member Jack Warner.



Another person charged is Jeffrey Webb, head of Concacaf, based in Miami.
Early Wednesday (NZT Thursday), FBI agents carrying bags and boxes to execute a search warrant went into the group's office in Miami Beach. A Concacaf spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Kelly Currie, the acting US attorney in Brooklyn said the charges brought in the New York City borough represented "the beginning of our effort, not the end".
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/o/h/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: Concacaf president Jeffrey Webb.



GUILTY PLEAS
In addition to Blazer, 70, others who pleaded guilty were José Hawilla, 71, owner of the Traffic Group, a sports marketing firm founded in Brazil, and two of his companies; Daryan Warner, 46, and Daryll Warner, 40, sons of Jack Warner.
"It is clear that the case is based in large part on some cooperating insiders who have already plead guilty," said Miami lawyer David Weinstein, former prosecutor.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/o/c/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: Former acting president of Conmebol Eugenio Figueredo.



The Fifa officials appeared to have walked into a trap set by US and Swiss authorities. The arrests were made at dawn at a plush Zurich hotel, the Baur au Lac, where Fifa officials are staying before the vote. Suites at the hotel cost up to US$4000 (NZ$5500) a night.
Fifa called the arrests a "difficult moment" but said Blatter would seek another term as Fifa head as planned and the upcoming World Cups would go ahead as intended.
The arrests could have implications for sponsorship.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/o/b/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: President of the Venezuelan Football Federation Rafael Esquivel.



German sportswear company Adidas, long associated with Fifa, said the soccer body should do more to establish transparent compliance standards. Anheuser-Busch InBev ABI.BR, whose Budweiser brand is a sponsor of the 2018 World Cup, said Wednesday that it is closely monitoring developments at Fifa.
Data and documents were seized from computers at Fifa's Zurich headquarters, the Swiss prosecutors said.
Officials said that following the arrests, accounts at several banks in Switzerland had been blocked.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/o/7/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: Former president of the Nicaraguan Football Federation Julio Rocha.



The US Department of Justice named those arrested in Zurich as: Webb, Eduardo Li, Julio Rocha, Costas Takkas, Eugenio Figueredo, Rafael Esquivel and José Maria Marin.
The defendants included US and South American sports marketing executives said to have paid and agreed to pay "well over US$150 million in bribes and kickbacks to obtain lucrative media and marketing rights to international soccer tournaments".
Lynch said in a statement that the charges span "at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks".
http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/5/1/5/o/6/image.related.StuffPortrait.238x286.1515eh.png/1432760790379.jpg Reuters
Arrested: President of Costa Rica Football Federation Eduardo Li.

[Horn]

Palestinians await FIFA decision on Israel suspension



Ramallah, occupied West Bank - Abdulfattah Arar, 47, has a huge responsibility to shoulder. Recently appointed as the head coach of the Palestinian Olympic Football team, Arar has to handpick 22 players to represent Palestine, arrange boot camps, manage the team and motivate the players.

But when asked about the most difficult task associated with his new post, Arar had one answer: Israeli occupation. "It's probably psychological, but I never really thought of impediments to the game other than those imposed by the Israeli occupation," Arar told Al Jazeera.

Palestinian players have been killed (http://xssportpal.blogspot.com/2014/02/israeli-transgressions-against_9933.html) in the latest Israeli war on Gaza and in confrontations with Israeli forces in the West Bank. Others were injured or detained, including Johar Halabiyeh, an Abu Dis player who was shot 11 times in his legs in January 2014.

Israeli authorities have imposed restrictions on the building of sports facilities, while Israeli forces have broken up games and even attacked (http://www.the-afc.com/afc-president/shaikh-salman-denounces-israeli-attack-on-palestinian-fa-headquarters) the Palestine Football Association (PFA) headquarters.

For the past two years, the PFA has been filing complaints to FIFA over Israel's systematic violations (http://xssportpal.blogspot.com/). Last week, the PFA pushed for a vote to suspend the Israeli Football Association (IFA) membership in FIFA.

The Palestinian proposal is expected to be discussed in FIFA's upcoming congress in Zurich on May 29. "It's not about suspending the Israel Football Association (IFA); it's about our rights. This is a fair deal," PFA president, Jibreel Rajoub, told Al Jazeera.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/palestinians-await-fifa-decision-israel-suspension-150527055903301.html

[Glass]

Hillary would be proud.

[Horn]

Nobody in the U.S. even knows what FIFA is, let alone what their attourney general is doing enforcing laws that dont exist in Switzerland, in Switzerland...

[ShortJohnSilver]

So the corruption all A-OK for many years. Until FIFA moved to kick out Israel; then the USA , who can't seem to figure out what HFT trading is, can't seem to jail anyone on Wall Street, not even Jon Corzine who stole $1 Billion from his clients, moves against FIFA. Is that an accurate summation?

[slvrbugjim]

This is in fact a shot against Putin and Russia all the way

[Glass]

I think it's a double header. 2 birds.

I want to know why the USA is persecuting this? Seems odd being that nearly every other nation has had more to do with Soccer than the US. And why are they persecuting them in another country?

[jack1878]

So the corruption all A-OK for many years. Until FIFA moved to kick out Israel; then the USA , who can't seem to figure out what HFT trading is, can't seem to jail anyone on Wall Street, not even Jon Corzine who stole $1 Billion from his clients, moves against FIFA. Is that an accurate summation?

Yes, the corruption has been ongoing for over 2 decades but it suddenly blows up the day before FIFA was set to vote on suspending Israel from international football.

I just tried to make a post to this effect on the Guardian Australia blog but guess what............."we can't post your comment" was the response.

They have an iron grip on the western media.

[Glass]

I just tried to make a post to this effect on the Guardian Australia blog but guess what............."we can't post your comment" was the response.

They have an iron grip on the western media.

I frequently try to post on the Age. For a while there were no problems. Now many of my comments get blackholed. Not all, but the important stuff certainly does. They do have a grip. All you have to do is read the name on the By Line to see this. Heard of ausroundtable?

[Serpo]

FIFA head caught in ‘firing line’ of US neocons Get short URL (http://rt.com/op-edge/262473-fifa-world-cup-corruption-blatter/)
Published time: May 27, 2015 17:31
http://cdn.rt.com/files/opinionpost/40/14/90/00/fifa-7.si.jpgReuters / Maxim Shemetov

5462



Tags
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As the US levels charges against seven members of football’s world governing body, and one particularly hawkish US politician is calling for the FIFA head to be ousted, RT interviews observers for their views of the incident.

Seven high-ranking representatives from FIFA, the world football's governing body, were arrested on corruption charges following a raid on a Zurich hotel. The individuals, who allegedly received over $150 million (£97 million) worth of bribes going back to the 1990s, have been indicted on corruption charges in a US probe, the US Department of Justice said.
The arrests come just two days before a vote to re-elect the head of FIFA. Incumbent Sepp Blatter, who is running for a fifth term, wasn’t arrested. FIFA's headquarters in Zurich were also raided and documents seized. Walter De Gregorio, FIFA’s new director of communications & public Affairs, said the events wouldn’t strip Russia and Qatar of hosting upcoming World Cups in 2018 and 2022 respectively.
RT spoke with analysts to discuss whether the timing of the scandal was a coincidence.
According to Neil Clark, a UK-based journalist, “a lot of this [has] to do with the fact that you got all the bigwigs of FIFA at one place in hotels in Switzerland, ahead of Friday’s annual general meeting.”
“In terms of the FBI investigation, which we know has been going for a long time, this was really a perfect opportunity to arrest these people because they were in one place. And that’s a big factor with the timing,” Clark said.

http://rt.com/files/opinionpost/40/14/90/00/fifa-6.jpgAsian Football Confederation's Shin Man Gil draws Afghanistan for Group E in the 2018 FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers during the preliminary joint qualification round 2 draw in Kuala Lumpur, April 14, 2015. (Reuters / Olivia Harris)

FIFA's communications chief Walter De Gregorio said the president of football’s world governing body, Sepp Blatter is not involved in the scandal. However, US officials said he's not in the clear yet. Blatter, 79, has been the subject of a major media campaign for some time now.
According to investigative journalist Tony Gosling, the timing “is really the dead giveaway.”
“This investigation by the media and by various police authorities has been going on for about a year now and yet just two days before the election there are suddenly suspicions surrounding Sepp Blatter,” he told RT.
FIFA is one of the last remaining institutions in the world not owned and controlled by the West, Gosling said.
“I’m thinking about important institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), people like these who are overseeing the nuclear world. The US angle on all this is a dead giveaway. Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner at FIFA seem to be at the heart of this conspiracy even though the US isn’t really a soccer-playing country…We see them playing American football, a completely different sport, really.”
In Neil Clark’s view, there are several agendas at work here.
“We need to make sure that the awarding of these tournaments is fully transparent, which it hasn’t been. So there are legitimate grounds for concern,” he said. However, he also said there is a political agenda at play here.
“A lot of people didn’t like, for political reasons, the awards to Qatar (the World Cup 2022), and particularly the award to Russia in 2018. So it is completely independent of what’s happening today. For example, we have the US neoconservative Senator John McCain calling for Russia to be stripped of the World Cup. We’ve had the chairman of the Polish football association calling for Russia to be stripped of the World Cup. And the Ukrainian president, too. So there is a political campaign going on for the World Cup to be taken away from Russia or for countries to boycott it, and that’s independent of this latest news. So we’ve got to be aware of the politics too, that certain people didn’t like the awards going to Qatar and Russia in the first place,” Clark said.

Read morehttp://cdn.rt.com/files/news/40/0b/50/00/fifa-1.n.jpgFIFA officials arrested on corruption charges, face extradition to US (http://rt.com/news/262325-fifa-officials-arrested-corruption/)
McCain called on FIFA to oust Blatter because of “his continued support for Russia.”
According to Neil Clark, the FIFA head is in the firing line for US “neocons, because Mr Blatter went to Moscow not that long ago and said that there was no question of the World Cup being taken away from Russia.”
In the journalist’s opinion, Blatter has become “a hate figure by people whose interests are not really in football, let’s be honest, it’s about Russia bashing and it really riles them that the World Cup is going to be in Russia.”
Bryan MacDonald, journalist and broadcaster, argued the scandal is not aimed at removing World Cup 2018 from Russia; the issue here is Qatar.
“I think that there is an agenda in the West to have Qatar’s World Cup removed from them… Qatar is a small country in the middle of the desert. It’s basically Estonia in the desert. Obviously it’s vastly wealthier but it’s in the desert… It’s not surrounded by soccer-loving nations; it’s difficult to get to. The heat is overbearing there… I think the real agenda here is to get the World Cup moved out of Qatar. That’s what certain people behind the scenes are up to,” he said.
READ MORE: FIFA arrests over corruption LIVE UPDATES (http://rt.com/news/262385-fifa-officials-arrested-corruption)
MacDonald suggested McCain’s rhetoric could possibly be explained by him being lobbied.
“I would imagine that what John McCain knows about soccer you can write down on the back of a cigarette packet,” he said. “I would imagine that someone has lobbied John McCain here and McCain is taking lobbyists’ views on board. The lobbyists probably have said it’s a way to annoy Vladimir Putin, or a way to annoy somebody that John McCain doesn’t like. And he has picked up this ball - if you excuse the rugby metaphor - and ran with it.”
Journalist Tony Gosling, commenting on American lawmakers getting involved in the governing of football, said that he would like to see football thrive as sport completely independent of politics.
“But it seems we’ve got a bunch of control freaks in the US, they want to control all these institutions. And this is definitely a torpedo aimed at Blatter for this Friday election,” Gosling said. http://rt.com/op-edge/262473-fifa-world-cup-corruption-blatter/

[EE_]

God save the sports!

Bribes, kickbacks, criminal fraud, money laundering to the cumulative tune of more than $150 million.

All the bribe money was laundered through the very same global banks that very recently admitted guilt to criminal fraud and Libor/market rigging, to the tune of most likely hundreds of billions of dollars. The news says there was no wrongdoing by the banks.

So the banks only had to pay a small fine, a small portion of what they stole, while the bigwigs of FIFA get arrested, indicted for a minuscule amount compared.

Where was the outcry against the criminal bankers?

Just goes to show, fraud in sports is more important then fraud in government and banking. Imagine how much Wall Street bankers have stolen going back to the 1990s.

God save the sports!


Everything You Need to Know About FIFA’s Corruption Scandal

Hours later, across the Atlantic in New York City, the Justice Department unsealed a 47-count indictment against 14 defendants—including FIFA bigwigs, sports marketing executives, and the owner of a broadcasting corporation—with charges of racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. But there’s a lot of background here, so let’s get into it.

What exactly did these people do?

The Justice Department’s announcement primarily cites deals between FIFA, sports marketing groups, and broadcast corporations for the television rights to air the World Cup and other international soccer tournaments. Dating back to 1991, the indictment alleges, those involved conspired to receive bribes from marketing firms in exchange for exclusive television contracts—to the cumulative tune of more than $150 million. As Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated, “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.”

I thought I’d heard other, more recent, whispers about FIFA.

In 2010, FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, which led to reports of vote buying, but that’s not a focus of this particular investigation. This is a federal case, and the indictment deals chiefly with alleged fraud and corruption in North and South America. Until now, FIFA has deflected widespread corruption allegations by finding and suspending scapegoats, rather than acknowledging any problems at an institutional level.

So who got arrested?

Most of the defendants are from CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, the organizations that run North and South American soccer, respectively. Those arrested in Zurich hailed from the Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Venezuela, among others.

In addition, the Justice Department announced unsealed guilty plea deals with four other individual and two corporate defendants, including former FIFA executive Charles Blazer (the subject of a fascinating investigative profile last year, and an unbelievably corrupt official in his own right), and José Hawilla, “the owner and founder of a Brazilian sports marketing conglomerate.” Hawilla in particular will forfeit $151 million as a part of his plea, which illustrates just how much these guys do not want to go to prison.

While the defendants are a who’s-who of senior FIFA executives and their broadcast partners who benefited from kickbacks, there’s one big fish not named in the case: FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Wait, isn’t he a Bond villain?

Joseph “Sepp” Blatter has been president of FIFA since 1998; under his watch, football has increased in global popularity and become financially successful beyond imagination. But while he maintains that FIFA is but a humble nonprofit doing humanitarian work to bring sport to the world, he’s basically the head of a shadow nation-state that doesn’t “govern” world soccer so much as it plunders countries that want to host the World Cup. (Like, say, Qatar.) He’s also enough of a charmer to have said that women’s soccer would be more popular if the players wore tighter shorts.

But in 2013, FIFA covered 90% of the £16 million budget for the film United Passions, a deluge of fictional propaganda about FIFA’s history in which Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs) portrays Blatter. Imagine if Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane shook down the city of Oakland for enough tax dollars to pay Brad Pitt’s salary for playing Beane in Moneyball—that’s what Roth playing Blatter looks like on a grander scale. Blatter is basically NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, if he acted like a foreign dictator.

Hours later, across the Atlantic in New York City, the Justice Department unsealed a 47-count indictment against 14 defendants—including FIFA bigwigs, sports marketing executives, and the owner of a broadcasting corporation—with charges of racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. But there’s a lot of background here, so let’s get into it.

What exactly did these people do?

The Justice Department’s announcement primarily cites deals between FIFA, sports marketing groups, and broadcast corporations for the television rights to air the World Cup and other international soccer tournaments. Dating back to 1991, the indictment alleges, those involved conspired to receive bribes from marketing firms in exchange for exclusive television contracts—to the cumulative tune of more than $150 million. As Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated, “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.”

I thought I’d heard other, more recent, whispers about FIFA.

In 2010, FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, which led to reports of vote buying, but that’s not a focus of this particular investigation. This is a federal case, and the indictment deals chiefly with alleged fraud and corruption in North and South America. Until now, FIFA has deflected widespread corruption allegations by finding and suspending scapegoats, rather than acknowledging any problems at an institutional level.

So who got arrested?

Most of the defendants are from CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, the organizations that run North and South American soccer, respectively. Those arrested in Zurich hailed from the Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Venezuela, among others.

In addition, the Justice Department announced unsealed guilty plea deals with four other individual and two corporate defendants, including former FIFA executive Charles Blazer (the subject of a fascinating investigative profile last year, and an unbelievably corrupt official in his own right), and José Hawilla, “the owner and founder of a Brazilian sports marketing conglomerate.” Hawilla in particular will forfeit $151 million as a part of his plea, which illustrates just how much these guys do not want to go to prison.

While the defendants are a who’s-who of senior FIFA executives and their broadcast partners who benefited from kickbacks, there’s one big fish not named in the case: FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Wait, isn’t he a Bond villain?

Joseph “Sepp” Blatter has been president of FIFA since 1998; under his watch, football has increased in global popularity and become financially successful beyond imagination. But while he maintains that FIFA is but a humble nonprofit doing humanitarian work to bring sport to the world, he’s basically the head of a shadow nation-state that doesn’t “govern” world soccer so much as it plunders countries that want to host the World Cup. (Like, say, Qatar.) He’s also enough of a charmer to have said that women’s soccer would be more popular if the players wore tighter shorts.

But in 2013, FIFA covered 90% of the £16 million budget for the film United Passions, a deluge of fictional propaganda about FIFA’s history in which Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs) portrays Blatter. Imagine if Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane shook down the city of Oakland for enough tax dollars to pay Brad Pitt’s salary for playing Beane in Moneyball—that’s what Roth playing Blatter looks like on a grander scale. Blatter is basically NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, if he acted like a foreign dictator.

How did FIFA get this corrupt?

It all comes down to how FIFA is organized. Each of the 209 member nations gets a single vote when it comes to electing a federation President and executive committee. That means that the Maldives, Trinidad & Tobago, or Andorra have the same say in federation decisions as Brazil, Germany, or England. The smaller countries, and the (mostly) men who run their countries’ federations, also receive an equal cut of FIFA’s revenues—which means there’s no incentive for them to change any of the structure to the voting process.

Yeah, but shady sports organizations are everywhere. What about the International Olympic Committee? Hell, what about the NFL?

FIFA is uniquely positioned for this kind of epic legal takedown because the Justice Department kind of gets off on this heavy-lifting display of authority even outside American borders over the past decade. Also, it helps that Americans don’t really care about soccer.

Sure, soccer has been riding a growing wave of popularity, and the World Cup is now a more visible event, but it still lags behind many other sports in mainstream popular consciousness. Because of that, American culture just doesn’t revere soccer enough to consider FIFA sacrosanct. But consider the basketball version of this: let’s say FIBA, the world organization for basketball, decided to hold an international tournament in December that meant the NBA would have to suspend its season for a month. American superstars wouldn’t show up, the best team in the world wouldn’t be properly represented, and the world’s biggest TV market for the sport would be in open revolt against the event.

That’s essentially what FIFA is doing to European professional soccer leagues when it shifted the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to the winter. Because the rest of the world adores soccer so much, other prominent countries weren’t willing to take a stand for fear of backlash against its teams. The United States is just mediocre enough not to inspire the same reverence for the sport, which means the Justice Department cares more about the rampant financial corruption. Endemically American sports leagues—the NFL, NBA, MLB for instance—can get away with holding cities hostage for taxpayer money to rebuild stadiums, or locking out players to get a larger share of league revenue, because Americans care too much about seeing the sport to rise up against the shady business.

As for the IOC, countries are increasingly hesitant to even bid for the games because the data is so prevalent that the financial concessions are not worth the hassle. So many countries refused to enter or cancelled bids for the 2022 Winter Games that only two cities remain: Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China, which hosted the Summer Games in 2008. But the vast majority of Olympic sports aren’t as popular year-round as soccer, so the ire at the IOC hasn’t quite reached the same fever pitch.

So what happens now?

Well, Blatter released a statement saying FIFA “will continue to work with the relevant authorities…to root out any misconduct.” At best, this sounds insincere; at worst, it’s more of the same bald arrogance that took FIFA down this road. (Ironically enough, an vote is scheduled for later this week that would extend Blatter’s presidency to a fifth term.)

For the Justice Department, the next steps are to extradite those arrested back to the U.S. and enact harsh punishments that would serve as deterrents for future corruption. But it should be notes that the U.S. isn’t the only country rooting around; Swiss officials raided FIFA’s headquarters today as part of an investigation into how the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were awarded. And the clamor continues for FIFA to do something about the alleged human rights violations swirling around Qatar’s World Cup construction efforts.

Will any of this actually lead to change within FIFA?

Only time will tell. Still, Lynch and the Justice Department will keep coming—and once they’re through that door, other European authorities can’t be far behind.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/fifa-scandal-explained/

[jack1878]

Haven't heard of Ausroundtable but I just had a look at a site called Ozroundtable if that's the one you mean.

[jack1878]

Well the Palestinians backed down again. A handshake deal with the Israeli delegation to establish some committee to look at the issue.

Yeah like Israel will change its ways once a committee is established.

[Serpo]

Fifa crisis: Jack Warner says he fears for life and will reveal 'avalanche' of secrets


http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/04/fifa-crisis-jack-warner-says-he-fears-for-life-and-will-reveal-avalanche-of-secrets




Fifa crisis: Ex-official Chuck Blazer details bribe-taking



http://www.bbc.com/news/32998735

[Glass]

Do you reckon Chuck handed it all to the Feds on a platter? I do. I got a feeling he might walk over this. Just a feeling, a bit of an inkling.

It's also pretty clear you don't need to have played football to be involved in FIFA. I'm assuming Chuck never played sport.

Jack should have already posted his stuff before shooting his mouth off. He's now a DMW in my view.

[Glass]

I should have bet money on it. Read this sweetheart deal. I'll make another guess. Probation or similar.


Blazer negotiates lesser sentence with US

Former FIFA executive committee member Chuck Blazer agreed to act undercover for US prosecutors and has been co-operating since at least 2011 in the government's investigation of soccer corruption.

Blazer's 19-page co-operation agreement from November 25, 2013, was revealed on Monday after a federal judge agreed to a request by five media organisations and rejected an objection by federal prosecutors.

Blazer agreed "to participate in undercover activities pursuant to the specific instructions of law enforcement agents or this office" and "not to reveal his cooperation or any information derived therefrom to any third party without prior consent," according to the agreement between Blazer and the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, New York.

Blazer also agreed not to contest any ban imposed on him by FIFA or any other soccer governing body.
As part of the deal, Blazer agreed he had unreported income over $US11 million ($A14.17 million) for 2005-10 and said he would sign over title of his FIFA pension if needed to satisfy payments owed to the US government.

He already has agreed to penalties and a fine totalling nearly $US2.5 million ($A3.22 million) and to pay more in the future.
In exchange for Blazer's co-operation and guilty pleas to 10 counts, the government agreed not to recommend a specific sentence for his crimes and also accepted that a reduction of up to three levels be warranted under sentencing guidelines if he "clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility."

An American who was soccer's former No. 2 official in North and Central America and the Caribbean, Blazer pleaded guilty in November 2013 to one count each of racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and wilful failure to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, and to six counts of tax evasion.
Charges involved facilitation of bribes in connection with the selection of the 1998 and 2010 World Cup hosts, and bribes and kickbacks in conjunction with the sale of broadcast and other rights to the CONCACAF Gold Cup from 1996-2003.

His co-operation was first reported by the New York Daily News last autumn. His pleas remained secret until they were revealed last month on the same day 14 soccer officials and marketing executives were indicted on corruption charges, including seven men arrested in Zurich ahead of the FIFA Congress, pending extradition to the US.
Just after he was elected to a fifth term as FIFA president later that week, Sepp Blatter announced his intention to resign when a successor is chosen.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has said the 79-year-old Blatter is a target of the investigation, The Associated Press has reported.
The maximum sentence to the 10 counts Blazer pleaded guilty to totals 100 years, but he is likely to serve far less time. For example, a three-level reduction to a racketeering charge could reduce the guideline sentence from 30-37 months to 21-27 months. And in many instances, judges order sentences to be served concurrently rather than consecutively.

Link to story (https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/a/28469327/blazer-negotiates-lesser-sentence-with-us/)

Blatter is making noises that he will stay on as FIFA leader. Of course these kind of guys get a free pass. All in the family.

[Glass]

The last part of the above story.

Blazer was CONCACAF's general secretary from 1990-2011 and a member of FIFA's executive committee from 1997-2013.
The cooperation agreement is dated the same day Blazer pleaded guilty, and says "the defendant will provide truthful, complete and accurate information and will cooperate fully with the office".

The document references 11 written agreements between Blazer and the government from December 29, 2011, through to November 2013.
Blazer agreed to cooperate with the IRS to determine and pay tax on his liability from 2005-13 and said he had an unreported account at FirstCaribbean International Bank in the Bahamas with $US975,751 ($A1.26 million). He agreed to pay a FBAR civil penalty for $US487,875. ($A628,000).

Blazer, 70, forfeited $US1,958,000 ($A2.52 million) and agreed to pay a second amount to be determined by the time of sentencing.