FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Sepp Blatter Quits

[Vipers31]

Too many worldwide gullible soccer fans that sadly, FIFA got away with this stuff for too long. The John Oliver Last Night rant was spot-on about this topic about some soccer fans and religious fanatics being one-and-one. The world isnt filled sadly with hfboards-style soccer fans.

Just sucks it takes a powerful country like the USA getting screwed for anything to happen.

I think even the most casual fans knew the deal with FIFA & corruption.

Knowing the deal and being able to prove something to effectively force changes are two entirely different matters. Looks like they finally have the evidence to go after some people, and if they go down, there's hope they aren't going quietly.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

'Murica: "We don't like soccer, but you screwed us over the World Cup, so we are gonna screw you right back".

Seriously though, happy those who are ruining the sport are getting finally caught but not expecting too much out of this.

Justice will be served, but only half of it will be. They will probably be judged and found guilty. Some will have to pay hefty fines, some others could get jailed, but the functioning of FIFA will not change. The way WC hosts are awarded will remain the same, corruption will stay and Russia and Qatar will still host WCs 2018 and 2022.

Fixed.

But, hey, let's be honest, I don't care why they did it, I am just glad that they did.

Can 'Murica put Florentino Perez in jail next?

 

[Hasbro]

So is this all about Murica wanting to host the WC ?

Think about all that money ....

Seriously isn't the "US is butt hurt at losing to Qatar" going to be the defense on these criminal case and relocating the WC?

 

[kov]

'Murica: "We don't like soccer, but we'll clean it up for you".

Seriously though, happy those who are ruining the sport are getting finally caught but not expecting too much out of this.

Justice will be served, but only half of it will be. They will probably be judged and found guilty. Some will have to pay hefty fines, some others could get jailed, but the functioning of FIFA will not change. The way WC hosts are awarded will remain the same, corruption will stay and Russia and Qatar will still host WCs 2018 and 2022.

Uh, so you're saying it will not get cleaned up, justice will not be served, and nothing will change.

your headline should just read "We don't like soccer."

 

[Pilky01]

I remain skeptical that any meaningful change can/will happen.

 

[chasespace]

Doubt anything big will come directly from the criminal cases but it may give UEFA the fuel it needs to start a fire and(hopefully) organize a walk out amongst the federations.

 

[Burner Account]

Doubt anything big will come directly from the criminal cases but it may give UEFA the fuel it needs to start a fire and(hopefully) organize a walk out amongst the federations.

Well, this is a result of one man rolling on 14 others. Who knows what they have on any of the 14 individually.

 

[Burner Account]

Official DoJ release

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-...ecutives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and

 

[East Coast Bias]

Hopefully, in addition to nailing FIFA, they slam Traffic and something changes with 3rd party ownership. There's been talks of banning it, but it really needs to be highlighted how wrong this **** is.

Traffic Sports Marketing owns the rights to hundreds of South American (mostly Brazilian and Argentine) players.

For every Neymar, who got to Barca and got paid, there's 100 of others who got shopped around the world and had their careers ruined over transfer money.

 

[Dave is a killer]

I've got to agree, nothing is going to change in this sport.

 

[Panteras]

did you really need the fbi to get involved in this? The most incompetent detective work could've indicted these bafoons

 

[Evilo]

The flights to Moscow out of Zurich will be full tomorrow.

Corruption is a russian specialty, right?

Well most of the arrested guys are from the american continent.

 

[Plato]

did you really need the fbi to get involved in this? The most incompetent detective work could've indicted these bafoons

In considering the legal teams some of these guys are going to put together, you have to bust out all the big guns.

 

[Deficient Mode]

Corruption is a russian specialty, right?

Well most of the arrested guys are from the american continent.

Because Russia won't extradite anyone to the US...

And because those operating in North and South America are the easiest for the US Department of Justice to claim jurisdiction over...

No one in the thread said or implied that corruption is an Eastern specialty.

 

[Evilo]

I'd say flights to Bahamas or Cayman islands are much more bound to happen.

 

[Deficient Mode]

Nike is also implicated in the bribery surrounding their $400 million deal with the Brazilian federation in 1996.

 

[Chimaera]

Everyone had their hand out.

The FBI won't be able to make most of this stick, and they'll probably serve up a few low level guys and pop a Fed President or two, but in the end Sepp will lord over all of this and say he's staying for life.

I wouldn't be shocked if the US gets some payback in other ways for this action.

 

[Slopo]

I'd say flights to Bahamas or Cayman islands are much more bound to happen.

Both of those have extradition treaties with the U.S.

 

[Deficient Mode]

I'd say flights to Bahamas or Cayman islands are much more bound to happen.

The Cayman Islands is a tax haven, not a resort for criminals. The US has an extradition treaty with both the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. And unlike Russia, they have no political power to speak of, and the US could easily pressure them to extradite a suspect if they really wanted.

Really, you are making the argument about East vs. West narrative when that is entirely beside the point of the case.

 

[Live in the Now]

Everyone had their hand out.

The FBI won't be able to make most of this stick, and they'll probably serve up a few low level guys and pop a Fed President or two, but in the end Sepp will lord over all of this and say he's staying for life.

I wouldn't be shocked if the US gets some payback in other ways for this action.

The burden of proof for charging federal cases is far higher. They also have whistle blowers who have already entered guilty pleas.

They probably will stick. These people probably have no interest in serving time either. If they have anything on Blatter, they'll give it up.

 

[kov]

Question is how do you actually clean it up? Sure, fire a bunch of folks but without structural changes their replacements will end up the same.

One thing that occurs to me is that FIFA in general should shrink, and shrinking their revenue is the best way to make that happen. So how about handing all (or say 90%) of the sponsorship revenues that FIFA currently keeps to the WC host instead? That'll (a) shrink FIFAs power and (b) make hosting less costly (which currently seems to be a problem).

Then make huge transparency changes to the host bidding process to make it more difficult to rig. The jobs these guys have are very simple and should thus be very limited, and very transparent -- they should simply be pass-throughs.

I'm sure there's lots of other things that can be done, that was my first "big ticket item" I thought of.

 

[Live in the Now]

This definitely isn't only Russia/Qatar related.

 

[mouser]

This definitely isn't only Russia/Qatar related.

Very interested to see who those bribes came from.

 

[IHaveNoCreativity]

If the FBI is involved you can bet ****'s getting real.

These are rich people, they have no desire to do time and If the evidence the FBI has is enough to cause them doubt then these people will talk in a heartbeat.

I think this could get nasty.

 

[NyQuil]

Finally we'll find out the truth about why Chelsea played such unattractive football to win the title.