This has nothing to do with the awarding of locations yet and more to do with the marketing sponsors from what I understand. If that is true then we will probably see even Fox come under the spotlight because the way they were awarded T.V rights without a tender was extremely shady. If it is limited to that then Sepp walks though a lot of other powerful people are going down and given there was already quiet talk of the influential individual federations and league organizations of Europe , South America and Asia breaking away to form a new transparent organization this might just accelerate the process.
If they do decide to bring up charges regarding the awarding of locations then it seems like a collateral waste of resources that could be diverted to more pressing concerns and probably has a lot of butt-hurt going on behind the scenes. Clinton was supremely pissed on missing out after making himeself the face of the campaign . When it comes ot Qatar , Kickbacks obviously played a role in the world cup being awarded to them but there were other factors involved. FIFA has always strived to take the game to different parts of the globe and given football is still the only thing that qualifies as a universal language despite rapid globalization that is a noble concept. ‘Invented by the Chinese , Exported by the English and conquered by the Brazilians’ I believe is the saying.
What you have to keep in mind here is that Blatter wasn’t in favor of Qatar hosting the WC, he wanted the U.S. to host it. With Russia, that bid had support from Platini, as well as the U.S. via Chuck Blazer.
No doubt Blatter is corrupt, but we can say that about every player here. Platini and UEFA can whine all they want about corruption, but they’ve taken their bribes from Putin.
Looks like you’re right. Forget Platini , it goes all the way up toSarkozy. The segment of charges that related to corruption in marketing sponsors etc made a lot of sense as they were hurting American corporations but the FBI just released a statment saying they’re looking into the awarding of world cup rights and coinciding with Blatters resignation it looks like things are getting juicy. Turns out Blazer has been wearing a wire for over a year in FIFA meetings etc and his testimony is fascinating. They’ve also confirmed they’re going after these guys under the RICO Act which means at this point Blatter is a dead man walking.
This definitely has an element of politics behind it and on some level Qatar is being targeted because they are a poltically weak nation punching far above their weight. Australia were proven to have attempted bribing in the Garcia report and South Africa were accused too. Germany 2002 was extremely murky with one member abstaining at the last minute allowing the world cup to go to Germany rather than South Africa and he later came out and said he had been bribed. Korea / Japan had a lot of controversy behind it and Blatters predecessor Havalange was even more shady. It’s safe to say USA would never have had '94 if there weren’t kickbacks and it wouldn’t surprise me if people who had first hand information on that bid were the first to have squealed. We probably won’t hear about the cases that far back in the interest of ‘national security’ but the moment people pretty far up on the current chain start squealing in exchange for plea bargains we’ll see how far the rot goes in FIFA. The whole thing stinks and it wouldn’t surprise me if the entire organization starts collapsing and individual federations start distancing themselves from FIFA.
It will be interesting to see if they nab the Qataris. I think the Qataris might have been slightly naive about this and probably did not have the experience of English , Americans etc at ‘lobbying’ and furthering ‘business interests’ without leaving a paper trail. They probably just turned up with envelopes full of cash leaving an easy path for the feds to follow. The legal ramifications could be enormous if they are stripped of this.
The whole thing is a mess and if Putin is allowed to keep 2018 (which he will) and Qatar are stripped then it lends credibility to their allegations of bias. " Every reigon bribed their way to a world cup but the moment the Arabs did it , everyone threw a fit "
Thank god the club game is far more efficiently run.
EDIT : Maybe the Qataris are more politically savy than it appears.
There’s no doubt that Qatar is an easy target for “corruption” notwithstanding that every World Cup has been won after paying tons of bribes and kickbacks. That said, Qatar made it too obvious. Western entities can croon all they want, but they don’t mind it when taking Qatari petrodollars.
