FIFA [alleged] corruption

[liquidfootball2]

Every rumour dismissed at the time as groundless seems to be being proved right, it's just a new revelation or ten per day.

The hierarchy needs total change and although a lot of good work in spreading the game has been done, it's only been done in much the same way as the mafia can be altruistic if it furthers their own interests or power base. I think it's been all about empire building from Blatter and i think most of the good stuff would have been done without him anyway.

[DrBunker]

This Irish stuff is bizarre, makes you wonder what's coming next!

I was coming on here to post about this. Of all the revelations this to me is one of the most shocking. An international charitable organisation pays a FA to prevent legal action over what was an obvious mistake at the time... why? What wouldn't they stoop to?!

Fifa 'paid FAI to stop legal action over Henry's World Cup handball' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33011692

[Vid]

Cheating is bad but compensation makes it acceptable.

[Tacalabala]

It's not match fixing, but it's not many rungs on the ladder off it.

[forestfan]

This Irish stuff is bizarre, makes you wonder what's coming next!

I was coming on here to post about this. Of all the revelations this to me is one of the most shocking. An international charitable organisation pays a FA to prevent legal action over what was an obvious mistake at the time... why? What wouldn't they stoop to?!

Fifa 'paid FAI to stop legal action over Henry's World Cup handball' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33011692

Isn't that just what's generally known as an "out of court settlement", when it's not kept secret that is?

Not sure why a team would have a legal case against a refereeing decision anyway, unless the officials were proven to be corrupt.

[DrBunker]

It's not match fixing, but it's not many rungs on the ladder off it.

Exactly, the bribes we knew about and it happens in politics, finance etc. but this is on the edge of something much darker.

[Steph]

I also think the Asian/African = corrupt; Europe/America/Australia = not corrupt is way too simplistic. You only need to look at the nationalities of most of those arrested, the nationality of FIFA's president, the £16000 watches that didn't want to be returned, the latest allegations about Australia's bid, before moving on to Olympic scandals, the IOC corruption scandals, almost all the doping scandals, etc. In facts it seems to me that most of the corruption in football/sport has been European, North American and South American (and certainly no better than in Asia/Africa). Am I missing something?

[Tacalabala]

This Irish stuff is bizarre, makes you wonder what's coming next!

I was coming on here to post about this. Of all the revelations this to me is one of the most shocking. An international charitable organisation pays a FA to prevent legal action over what was an obvious mistake at the time... why? What wouldn't they stoop to?!

Fifa 'paid FAI to stop legal action over Henry's World Cup handball' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33011692

Isn't that just what's generally known as an "out of court settlement", when it's not kept secret that is?

Not sure why a team would have a legal case against a refereeing decision anyway, unless the officials were proven to be corrupt.

If it had been France going out on account of a Robbie Keane handball, I'd suggest there would have been a good chance that a third match at a neutral venue would have been played.

[Steph]

This Irish stuff is bizarre, makes you wonder what's coming next!

I was coming on here to post about this. Of all the revelations this to me is one of the most shocking. An international charitable organisation pays a FA to prevent legal action over what was an obvious mistake at the time... why? What wouldn't they stoop to?!

Fifa 'paid FAI to stop legal action over Henry's World Cup handball' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33011692

Isn't that just what's generally known as an "out of court settlement", when it's not kept secret that is?

Not sure why a team would have a legal case against a refereeing decision anyway, unless the officials were proven to be corrupt.

If it had been France going out on account of a Robbie Keane handball, I'd suggest there would have been a good chance that a third match at a neutral venue would have been played.

I think just FIFA's typical way of trying to make problems go away - throw money at it.

[DrBunker]

I also think the Asian/African = corrupt; Europe/America/Australia = not corrupt is way too simplistic. You only need to look at the nationalities of most of those arrested, the nationality of FIFA's president, the £16000 watches that didn't want to be returned, the latest allegations about Australia's bid, before moving on to Olympic scandals, the IOC corruption scandals, almost all the doping scandals, etc. In facts it seems to me that most of the corruption in football/sport has been European, North American and South American (and certainly no better than in Asia/Africa). Am I missing something?

Not that I can see. It's easy to paint the developing nations as inherently corrupt but it's never that simple. But it is also true that the developing nations, who have equal voting rights, are a lot easier to corrupt.

[forestfan]

I also think the Asian/African = corrupt; Europe/America/Australia = not corrupt is way too simplistic. You only need to look at the nationalities of most of those arrested, the nationality of FIFA's president, the £16000 watches that didn't want to be returned, the latest allegations about Australia's bid, before moving on to Olympic scandals, the IOC corruption scandals, almost all the doping scandals, etc. In facts it seems to me that most of the corruption in football/sport has been European, North American and South American (and certainly no better than in Asia/Africa). Am I missing something?

It's not that Asia/Africa are more corrupt in themselves than the other federations, just that they've consistently voted as a block to prevent any challenge to Blatter and his associates, whereas a number of people from Europe, the Americas etc. have stood up to him in recent years but not had the voting numbers to make any difference.

[liquidfootball2]

+1

Exactly, it's the block vote that can outweigh any attempt to get rid of an unscrupulous operator. It is far easier to empire build in underdeveloped parts and a lot cheaper, with the added bonus that one country, no matter how small one vote, which means that there's the massive bonus of making yourself untouchable to anyone looking to clean up the game at the same time.

It was far easier for Blatter to come up with ridiculous slogans and conspiracy theories if whole continents want to hear that. Pander to them, give them what they want to hear and count the potential votes!

Everyone's happy! Well not quite but at least you are.

[Pouzar99]

Looking for the ideal person to take over?. Someone with a great deal of experience in world sports other than football? An individual with proven integrity and a long record of ferreting out cheats and demanding drug testing in all sports. You won't find a better choice than Dick Pound.

[Steph]

good call there on Dick Pound, although some of his comments seem a little Blatteresque:

"In January 2007, Pound responded to Floyd Landis' testosterone test following stage 17 of the Tour of France.... Pound declared "I mean, it was 11 to 1!" referring to the testosterone-to-epitestosterone level. "You’d think he’d be violating every virgin within 100 miles. How does he even get on his bicycle?"

[mikeg13]

My choice would be David Gill, though chances of it happening remote, knows football understands way it works, just my opinion, has the strength of character needed to push through needed changes.
While in favour of present system regarding all counties been seen as equal, it does bring problems and needs an outside reference organisation , like that used to oversee elections in some country' s to look at its books every 2 years.
The way to at least slow down the human attribute ie greed, is to give each area a set world cup slot, so that when it came to say Europe's turn only countries in Europe would contest it and vote on it, same for each organisation that makes up FIFA ,to me if whats said about football being "The World Game" is true, its key atribute the WC has to be available to all.
When it comes to countries that have problems with staging due to weather conditions, then it has to be changed to a time when it is feasible, but it has be in the open not changed after, so long as there is a proper time frame known it can be done.

[unc.si.]

I also think the Asian/African = corrupt; Europe/America/Australia = not corrupt is way too simplistic. You only need to look at the nationalities of most of those arrested, the nationality of FIFA's president, the £16000 watches that didn't want to be returned, the latest allegations about Australia's bid, before moving on to Olympic scandals, the IOC corruption scandals, almost all the doping scandals, etc. In facts it seems to me that most of the corruption in football/sport has been European, North American and South American (and certainly no better than in Asia/Africa). Am I missing something?

Europe's corruption has largely been institutionalised though, so its not as obvious to the casual observer. In Britain we've even set up a ghetto of corruption in central London and dressed it up to look nice. (in America it's the norm so no-one notices and in Australia who gives a eff as long as the surfs up).

One think I've been mulling over is who actually decides what happens next? I guess the best option would be that FIFA gets wound up and a new structure set up by the national FA's, with an exec led by some experienced guys from the football world (Mike's suggestion of Gill's not a bad shout IMO - a couple from FIFA for experience and a couple from football but currently outside FIFA for a bit of balance) with a non-exec oversight team of respected people with sports expertise from outside football and maybe someone well respected but with no sporting links completing the board - Pound would be perfect to head up the Non-Exec. Get someone like Travis Tygert or Mike Ashenden involved in the system as well just to really put the shits up the national FA's

Not sure footballs really ready for Dick Pound though tbh (insert own WAG joke). Would probably also come with the slight inconvenience of having to start doing drug testing, which is obviously not going to go down very well.

Who organises it all though? Does anyone really believe FIFA can sort it's own house out? On the other hand can the national or regional FA's actually get their act together to put together a credible alternative?

Must confess to being a little sceptical...

[forestfan]

Has the UN ever got involved in sport before? Given what appears to be large scale corruption on a global scale it would perhaps make sense in terms of overseeing reform or replacement of FIFA.

[Steph]

Apparenly Germany secured the world cup with an arms deal to Saudi Arabia http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... land-henry
http://www.zeit.de/sport/2015-06/chuck- ... chaft-2022
Not news according to the BBC - wonder why that is?

[Steph]

A Western government arms deals to sway a FIFA vote probably doesn't count as corruption just business as usual. perhaps I should be looking in the business section for that one.

[DrBunker]

Looks like Warner is bang to rights, I wonder if he'll carry on with his "I've got an avalanche of revelations" rhetoric now that it seems unlikely he'll be able to get much of a plea bargain...

[liquidfootball2]

Fresh allegations of corruption and bribery have been made around the contest to host the 2010 World Cup.

The Sunday Times claims that Morocco actually won the vote - but the process was rigged in favour of South Africa, which went on to hold the tournament in 2010.

Sky correspondent Enda Brady said: "This is shocking stuff. It centres around the whole voting process, the rights to hold the World Cup.

"We may well hear from FIFA later in the day."

It comes after former FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner, who was charged by the US last week over alleged corruption within the world football's governing body, has been accused of "playing for time".

[foxinthebox2001]

Looks like Warner is bang to rights, I wonder if he'll carry on with his "I've got an avalanche of revelations" rhetoric now that it seems unlikely he'll be able to get much of a plea bargain...

Maybe he feels if he is going down he will take a few more with him, but how can anyone trust the word of a man who is gullible enough to believe a story from The Onion?

[Tacalabala]

The Morocco allegation is very serious indeed, if that's true than the Moroccan FA has every right to take legal action.

[forestfan]

I think Morocco is also alleged to have been involved in corruption as well as South Africa, so it doesn't appear a "clean" bid was unfairly denied, if that's true they may not have much of a case.

[Steph]

sounds like 2006 WC should have gone to SA and 2010 not to SA? Wonder what the last clean WC award was?

Here is a translation from the Zeit article (Google translation with some editing and checking back to the original by myself):

"For a long time the myth was that Germany had Franz Beckenbauer's golf clubs diplomacy to thank for the world cup. Anyone familiar with Fifa, has never believed that. The faxes and the cuckoo clocks of Martin Sonneborn were probably not the reason either. Before the election in July 2000, South Africa was in front a long time. But at the last minute a number of votes changed, especially from Asia. Charles Dempsey of New Zealand did not vote at all, although he had intended to vote for South Africa. Germany won 12:11 in a tie, the President Blatter would have opted for South Africa. Dempsey took to the grave his secret of why he left the room shortly before the vote.

Shortly before, a Germany AG from politics and business had become active, especially in areas where members of the FIFA Executive Committee were living. Daimler has invested hundreds of millions of euros in Hyundai, and a son of the Hyundai founder sat on the Executive Committee of FIFA. Volkswagen and Bayer AG promised to invest heavily in Thailand and South Korea. The government of Gerhard Schröder decided to supply RPGs to Saudi Arabia a week before the World Cup award. Germany had "briefly lifted the arms embargo" Guido Tognoni a Fifa employee said later. The late media entrepreneur Leo Kirch bought worthless TV rights for friendlies Bayern Munich. Beckenbauer was then president of Bayern. A company of Kirch's transferred a high amount to Thailand's FIFA member Morawi Makudi. Makudi chose Germany. When he was asked about this in Berlin at a press conference of the Women's World Cup 2011, Blatter suspended the engagement.

Legally, the procedure in Germany may have been legal, but it is not just up to what is meant by sportsmanship. All this is known for more than ten years. The German public rather remembers the summer fairytale. Corruption is considered a problem of the other, for example, Trinidad or Vanuatu."

[Pouzar99]

Actually Dempsey did provide an explanation. Whether you believe it as another matter. I suspect he was bribed but had to come up with a cover story,but judge for yourself. I am having trouble paste the link on here, but he claimed he was threatened and was vague about the details. I found it very quickly by Googleing. You can too. Love this thread.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/11/sport ... final.html

Got it!

[murf]

Nice to know FIFA used their cash so wisely.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33050289
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/ju ... -depardieu

I never knew there was a film but could have saved them a fortune by predicting what size turkey it would be. I'm amazed the FilmBar cinema in Phoenix's takings were so high.......

“Being president of Fifa will bring no glory, no money!”

[DrBunker]

Not just a B-movie either; Gérard Depardieu, Sam Neill and Tim Roth!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2814362/

Imagine if a major UK charity spent £16m making a movie to promote themselves - there would be uproar. This was ego-stroking of the highest order.

[Carlos Kickaball]

It was a serious artistic endeavour adding to the rich football culture, and a business venture which surely made FIFA millions of pounds more than the outlay and promoted football across the globe.

[bluenosey]

Only one person paid to see it in Phoenix