To nobody's great surprise, it's being reported this morning that several top FIFA officials have been arrested on charges of corruption. The arrests of the as yet unnamed officials was carried out in an early morning raid by Swiss Police. It is believed, at this stage, that the operation was carried out in accordance with a U.S. extradition request. More, I'm sure, will follow! * It now is being reported that the arrests targeted FIFA's executive commitee who were gathering in Zurich to elect Blatter for a fifth term. They are wanted on charges of widespread corruption over the past two decades. Charges are expected to include wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering.
It'll be interesting to see FIFA's reaction, especially with the elections this week which will be presumably cancelled. I don't think Blatter's daft enough to get himself directly caught up in any corruption but if he's being voted for because of the protection he gives to members they'll be very put out by the very likely scenario that he simply washes his hands of it early on.
Yes, I strongly suspect Mr Teflon has so far managed to keep his face out of the frame. However, U.S.prosecutors can be very aggressive in their interrogations. It will be interesting to see how many of them still keep loyally quiet when threatened with the next 900 yrs in jail!!
The biggest sport in the world was always going to attract the biggest rogues. With all that money sloshing around the odd million wont be missed (or so they thought) but greed never knows when to stop. We need the whole lot cleared out and a change to the voting system that put these bastards there in the first place. We have surely had enough of getting blattered.
Call me cynical, but what're the odds those arrested just so happen to be those standing against Blatter in the upcoming election? It wouldn't be the first time that happened.
Personally, I think either way Blatter is a 'dead man walking' if he won't resign, I believe he'll be Unceromoniously booted out. He can't just wash his hands of this whole thing - he presided over it, so the buck stops with him. I'm sure that once U.S. Prosecutors get hold of these guys, the accusations will fly. It'll be every man try and save your own arse. A lot of **** will be thrown at Blatter. This time I think it will stick!
I wish I had your optimism. Blatter will be re elected again on Friday it seems as there hasn't been any indication they'd even entertain the idea of postponing it. I was a little hopeful this morning but the way FIFA and Blatter defy any kind of reasoned argument makes them impossible to pressure out. What we need is for sponsors to pull out en masse and European nations to make some serious noises about pulling out of FIFA. At the moment we seem a long way away from this but you never know what's around the corner. It's hard to see where the tipping point is but if we reach it everything could happen very fast. Corruption investigations pulling a few weeds out won't do a great deal of damage unless it makes the sponsors abandon the organisation and that just doesn't seem likely at the moment. Blatter will always have enough votes whilst the money keeps rolling into FIFA and I can't see the finger pointing reaching him in the aftermath of this. It would be spectacular to finally see everything fall down around him though.
I lived in the USA for 4yrs and know a bit about how their legal system works. If the U.S. Prosecutors have enough evidence to press charges, they will pressurise the defendants into giving evidence in a plea bargain deal. As you probably know, prison sentences over there tend to be on the draconian side. My view is that those guys will say anything they're asked to in an effort to minimalise the penalty on themselves. If that means hanging Blatter out to dry, you can bet they'll do it! Just like to add, bloody well done to The U.S. For having the balls to do what should have been done years ago!
"The indictment also alleges that corruption and bribery extended to the 2011 presidential FIFA election, and to agreements regarding sponsorship of the Brazilian national soccer team by a major U.S. sportswear company," - U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch Which major US Sportswear company sponsored Brazil in 2011 and has done for many years? Nike. Bloody hell. This should be interesting.
Wait a minute...wouldn't it have been a much better idea to go after Nike to pressure them into snitching on FIFA as part of a plea bargain?
Speaking of Nike, and other major sponsors, such as Visa and McDonalds, I think they may well be the ones who decide Blatter has to go. He'll try desperately to hang on, for sure, but if those major sponsors threaten to pull out unless FIFA radically cleans up its act, I think he'll be gone.
This time last year it was Visa, Adidas and Sony threatening to pull out due to the lack of transparency when they were burying the report into corruption...while Coca-Cola basically said "It looks iffy, but we're sure FIFA will do the right thing." In other words, Coke were the honest ones there - they admit they like money, and that's what football gives them.
Depends on how much of an in-road the sponsors want to make into Russia and Qatar. I'm sure Russia is already a fairly well tapped (or as well as they will ever be) market and not sure what kind of market there is in Qatar - just over 2m population and only about 250,00 of those Qatari nationals. The sponsors would be happy for Blatter to post videos of himself shooting baby ducks and wearing a KKK hood if they still came out of it with more money than they came in with.
These guys are not idiots, they must have had very strong suspicions about the nature of FIFA. But so long as nothing had been proven, they could hide behind that and pretend that they were sponsoring a legitimate entity. Now, they have cold hard evidence stuck under their noses that these people are crooks. Remember, it is the U.S. who are bringing these charges, to their eternal credit, IMO, and these are mostly American corporations, the pressure on them to back right away from anything so blatantly crooked, will be enormous.
