Gyges posted:

So you're saying Obama's playing some 12 Dimensional chess over both the Ukraine and the Middle East.

HOTLANTA MAN posted:

The feds also raided CONCACAF HQ in Miami a couple hours ago.

If I'm on the IOC I'm torching documents.

ZenVulgarity posted:

Dr. Tough posted:

Please tell me that Qatar and Russia will have the World Cup taken away. That would be so loving funny.

Morrow posted:

I read the headline last night just before I went to bed and was convinced I was hallucinating.

With so many senior officials indicted in this round, many of whom have served on the executive committee, there's no way that some of them don't provide more material to the FBI. If I were any FIFA official who'd done something shady in the past twenty years, I'd start looking very closely at who has extradition treaties with the US and Switzerland.

Morrow posted:

I read the headline last night just before I went to bed and was convinced I was hallucinating.

With so many senior officials indicted in this round, many of whom have served on the executive committee, there's no way that some of them don't provide more material to the FBI. If I were any FIFA official who'd done something shady in the past twenty years, I'd start looking very closely at who has extradition treaties with the US and Switzerland.

On another note, Michael Garcia is probably having the time of his life.

Freakazoid_ posted:

I've been hearing for years about how terrible FIFA is despite having no interest in soccer.

quote:

Some of the worst offenses have gone unpunished. On the afternoon of Jan. 12, 2010, an earthquake rocked Haiti, right as the board of the nation’s soccer association was meeting in its ­Port-au-Prince headquarters. The president, Yves Jean-Bart, escaped lightly injured. As the building collapsed, rubble pinned coach Jean Yves Labaze, who died along with at least 31 others. The next day, when the phones were back up, Blatter called Jean-Bart and pledged help. FIFA said it sent $250,000 in aid to the head of North and Central American soccer at the time, Warner, in Trinidad and Tobago. A contributor from South Korea sent an additional $500,000. Jean-Bart says he got only a fraction of it. At first, “we got a small shipment of rice, but if you count it up it was worth less than $10,000,” he says. Additional assistance, for reopening offices, running matches, and other items, brought the total aid received to just $429,000, he says.

After Jean-Bart complained to FIFA and the regional confederation, Warner drew up an accounting of how the money was spent. A copy obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek shows receipts of more than $229,000 for generators, food, blankets, and other supplies from a Trinidad company whose address doesn’t appear to exist. Jean-Bart says he never received those supplies. More than $366,222 went toward bringing two Haitian soccer teams to Trinidad and other countries for matches, according to the ledger. Their flights were arranged by a Warner family travel agency, and their lodging was at Warner’s conference center—the one he built with FIFA money. Warner dragged Jean-Bart into it, too. The final section of the accounting shows $30,000 ­allocated to pay for Jean-Bart’s daughter’s medical school bills. Christina Jean-Bart says she didn’t receive any money and didn’t pursue medical school. Almost five years later, FIFA says it’s still investigating the Haitian matter.

quote:

For his 1998 campaign tour, Blatter relied on a Qatari named Mohamed bin Hammam, who ran Asia’s soccer confederation. Bin Hammam supplied cash and the use of a private jet for Blatter to crisscross Africa in pursuit of votes. In his book How They Stole the Game, David Yallop writes that cash bundles of $50,000 were handed out to African delegates in Paris before the vote.

quote:

Before the election in 2002, FIFA’s secretary general, lawyer Michel Zen-Ruffinen, compiled a report alleging abuse of power and mismanagement that was signed by 11 executive committee officers. “FIFA today is run like a dictatorship,” he wrote in the report. “It has been reduced to the Blatter organization.” Among the allegations were unauthorized payments by Blatter from FIFA accounts. All FIFA financial records from 1998 and earlier had vanished, making it impossible for FIFA staff or its KPMG auditors to assess the ­organization’s true finances, the report said.

quote:

A group of Europeans persuaded Issa Hayatou, the head of soccer in Africa, to stand against Blatter. At a meeting to discuss FIFA’s finances, the men from the Caribbean moved to put down the mutiny. Blatter backers, including the Caymans’ Webb, spoke up in Blatter’s favor. Boos and jeers rang out as dissenting voices were kept from the podium. A call from the Norwegian soccer association’s general secretary at the time, Karen Espelund, that Blatter’s opponents be heard was ignored. Blatter didn’t intervene, Espelund says. As she recalls it, the support for Blatter became strident. Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s son ­Al-Saadi, wearing a beret, took the stage to add his backing. A day later, Blatter wiped the floor with Hayatou, winning 139 to 56.

quote:

Less than a month before the ­election, members of the Caribbean Football Union gathered at a hotel in Trinidad to hear from bin Hammam. After he addressed the group, Warner took the stage and announced there would be gifts from bin Hammam for those in attendance. Later that day, delegates lined up at a hotel room door and entered one at a time. Inside, Caribbean soccer administrators handed each ­delegate an envelope stuffed with four stacks of $100 bills, each worth $10,000.

Glah posted:

Haha, can't think of a better way to reverse popular anti-american feelings about all those wars in ME than this.

Of all the countries, it is the US that ends up saving football.

V. Illych L. posted:

Really, the only bad thing about this is that the court documents will insist on calling the sport "soccer"

V. Illych L. posted:

Really, the only bad thing about this is that the court documents will insist on calling the sport "soccer"

Junior G-man posted:

Should you wish to learn a lot more:






I could keep on keeping on quoting from that article forever. It's all one giant of insane corruption.

V. Illych L. posted:

Really, the only bad thing about this is that the court documents will insist on calling the sport "soccer"

BigRed0427 posted:

So do we know yet what the Justice Department is looking for exactly or are they just pulling what ever bullshit they can find.

Also, no records exist after 1998? What are the odds it turns out FIFA isn't exactly financially solvent?

Hadaka Apron posted:

Do any other countries besides the US and Canada use the word "soccer"? I'm guessing that Australia does since they have their own sport that they call football.

BigRed0427 posted:

So do we know yet what the Justice Department is looking for exactly or are they just pulling what ever bullshit they can find.

Also, no records exist after 1998? What are the odds it turns out FIFA isn't exactly financially solvent?

V. Illych L. posted:

Really, the only bad thing about this is that the court documents will insist on calling the sport "soccer"

quote:

FBI director Comey is asked why it took so long for Fifa to be called out on the carpet. He cites the the complexity of the case in addition to the international component.

“You don’t want to bring a case until you have the goods and that takes time,” he says.

V. Illych L. posted:

tbh russia getting the WC isn't that insane imo, though obviously also corrupt

qatar, though, lol. just lol you can't even play football in qatar in the summer

quote:

Fifa’s sponsors, though, are deemed more reachable. This week has seen the launch of a campaign by the International Trade Union Confederation, Play Fair Qatar and the NewFifaNow group to shame them with the appalling conditions endured by labourers building tournament infrastructure for 2022. “As things stand,” declares Play Fair Qatar, “more than 62 workers will die for each game played during the 2022 tournament.”

To repeat: more than 62 per game. Perhaps players in every match could each wear 62 black armbands. Then again, that would probably contravene Fifa’s strict rules on what constitutes official kit, infringements of which it punishes ferociously. On infringements such as mass slave death, however, the evidence suggests it is more relaxed.

Hadaka Apron posted:

Do any other countries besides the US and Canada use the word "soccer"? I'm guessing that Australia does since they have their own sport that they call football.

BigRed0427 posted:

So do we know yet what the Justice Department is looking for exactly or are they just pulling what ever bullshit they can find.

Also, no records exist after 1998? What are the odds it turns out FIFA isn't exactly financially solvent?

Bob James posted:

It means the Scales of Justice are going to be rammed up your rear end.

A Winner is Jew posted:

This is not an exaggeration in any way on whats about to happen to those FIFA executive right now.

Baron Porkface posted:

Why do you say this WRT how permissive American corporate culture is and how much legal protections rich people get?

Guavanaut posted:

British upper-class schoolboys who also call rugby 'rugger'.

MechaStalin posted:

The sick thing about this is that if FIFA were an American organization they would be politically protected and considered 'TBTF'.

Adar posted:

The sicker thing is that this is unironically only possible precisely because Americans don't give a poo poo about soccer so FIFA is less untouchable than it is anywhere else on the planet.

Al-Saqr posted:

also, fat chance that the NFL ever get nabbed for building bogus stadium projects as political bribes.

Baron Porkface posted:

Why do you say this WRT how permissive American corporate culture is and how much legal protections rich people get?

Al-Saqr posted:

meanwhile, wall street execs are rewarded for bankrupting half of all Americans. good job, Rico act.

*runs away after trollish statement*