That American working with the DOJ for reduced charges apparently was recording conversations with other Fifa officials for 3 years. Let's hope he talked a lot to Blatter.
At least they recognise it finally. Its a disgrace how a lot of peoples release and some peoples religion can be profited. Sounds like the vatican.
That Blatter speech was hilarious, the bloke's completely deluded. There's rumours from US journalists that Warner is about to give evidence against Blatter for a lesser sentence, his days could finally be numbered.
Wouldnt surprise me, I don't know how your justice system works but in the U.S. If the press wants something they have enough contacts to get it no matter if it is an on going investigation. The DOJ will probably refuse to comment or be really vague when answering questions about leaked info.
The Asian Football Confederation has given Blatter it's full support. Unbelievable. Saying that, they are the ones giving him most of the brown envelopes.
Just on the world cup. I'm listening to Talksport at the moment. They just said that during construction for the Brazil world cup 10 workers died. Which is awful. At the moment the number of construction workers' deaths in Qatar stands at 1,200. It's estimated that figure will rise to 4,000 before work is completed. Makes me feel sick. Qatar should be stripped of the world cup just because of this. Disgrace.
Circus Maximus by Andrew Zimbalist review – an Olympic-sized rip-off A remarkable study that exposes the extraordinary chicanery and dodgy dealing behind staging the Olympics and the World Cup please log in to view this image Vladimir Putin poses with volunteers at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Photograph: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images Apart from war, nothing so deranges the political mind as national sports rivalry. It stirs patriotism, ostentation and group hysteria. In Britain, its participants are accorded the status of quasi-military heroes. At the apex of this derangement stand two so-called mega-events, the Olympic Games and football’s World Cup. Politicians will beg, bribe, cheat, lie and spend unlimited sums of taxpayers’ money to “win” a hosting of these contests. Andrew Zimbalist is a sports economist, though I wonder if he has not abandoned that profession, in despair, for behavioural psychology. The focus of his interest is not so much the host countries, which he portrays as desperate victims of some curse, gripped by lust for glory and immune to debt. Rather, he is mesmerised by their oppressors, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Fifa, self-perpetuating cabals of Swiss-based bureaucrats, who live fat on six-figure salaries, colossal expenses and unbounded arrogance. They travel the world like princes, playing on the weakness of democrats and dictators alike. With each event, they demand more venues and more costs. The IOC’s boss Juan Antonio Samaranch was understandably addressed as “your excellency”. When London was awarded the 2012 Games, it paid $500,000 in fees to the IOC just to bid. The British government then increased a customarily understated budget of £3bn to more than £9bn. The IOC demanded London build a new, fortified city at Stratford, despite the new Wembley having been designed for the purpose. The so-called Olympic “family” required five-star hotels and fleets of limousines, roads to be cordoned designated for their private use, including a “Zil lane” past Harrods, and traffic lights that turned green on their approach. Parliament had to pass a law placing the police and regulators at the IOC’s disposal. The IOC was excused all local taxes and its sponsors were not to suffer rival products advertised anywhere within sight – not so much as the name of a loo seat. The army was put on standby, with missile launchers and submarines at the ready. London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, told his citizens to stay off the tube lest they impeded Games visitors. Tourist sites emptied. Such nonsense is not even offered to a visiting head of state. Yet the government dared deny the IOC nothing. Britain, like other host nations, went into banana republic mode. The BBC turned soft in the head, its presenters screaming at every medal like Stalinist sycophants. Newspapers abandoned all news judgment for the duration. Critics were treated like conscientious objectors during the Great War, wimps who could not stand the sight of weapons of mass expenditure. When the IOC and its grubby younger sister Fifa were founded in 1894 and 1904 respectively, they were dedicated to international concord and amateurism (not yet a term of abuse). They went along with Hitler’s transformation of the 1936 Olympics from the cause of internationalism to that of nationalism, and never looked back. ...continued on: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/22/circus-maximus-andrew-zimbalist-review
There have been a ridiculous amount of deaths of construction workers in Qatar and it is a disgrace, but that figure is for general building in Qatar, they haven't actually started building any of the stadiums yet.
They have in Al Wakrah well the ground works at least and the railways are well on the way too which I believe is associated with the world cup. http://stadiumdb.com/constructions/qat/al_wakrah_stadium These figures are from over a year ago. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/2022-world-cup-qatar-accused-3303458
If true, it will be the deadliest construction in the Middle East/North Africa (I consider Egypt to be a part of both) since the Great Pyramids of Giza.
Indeed, but I think more severe action needs to be taken against them to stop it, rather than it being just a World Cup issue.
