The longstanding rumors of corruption throughout FIFA appear to be true — but the president of soccer’s global governing body, Sepp Blatter, looks to have come out of Wednesday’s indictments unscathed.
At least for now.
The U.S. government launched a widespread corruption investigation on FIFA that began with the arrest of seven senior soccer officials at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, and continued throughout the day with the search of affiliated offices in Miami.
Following the raids, U.S. prosecutors would not say that Blatter was under investigation, but that should be taken as nothing more than a formality.
If the charges the U.S. government and Swiss officials are alleging are true, then it is hard to believe Blatter was ignorant to the inner-workings and alleged corruption of the organization he has overseen since 1998.
And the allegations? They’re scathing.
U.S. authorities said that nine FIFA officials and five sports media and promotions executives have been charged in cases that involve more than $150 million in bribes over 24 years.
In order to explain how the world’s governing body for arguably the most popular sport in the world could engage in such large-scale corruption, U.S. authorities — namely the Federal Bureau of Investigation — detailed the numerous other crimes they claim their investigation has revealed: money laundering, tax fraud and the illegal offshore accounts held by FIFA officials that allegedly hold tens of millions of dollars.
"As charged in the indictment, the defendants fostered a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world," FBI Director James Comey said in a statement. "Undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks, and bribes became a way of doing business at FIFA."
Apart from the entire U.S.-led investigation come charges from Swiss prosecutors who are investigating money laundering and bribery related to FIFA awarding the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
In 2013, "The Guardian" newspaper was the first to shine a light on the massive labor abuse that was occurring in Qatar, where worker mortality rates were climbing due to alleged forced labor combined with the scorching heat.
In a report by the International Trade Union Confederation, the ITUC claimed in March 2014 that more than 1,200 people had died in Qatar working on the World Cup — more than any other major international sporting event this decade.
Considering Qatar was awarded the bid in 2010, and laborers will work until 2022 on the facilities, the ITUC estimates that 4,000 workers will die in Qatar before the World Cup is held.
That is abhorrent, and anyone who thinks that is justifiable is out of his or her mind.
What might be the most alarming, however, is how calm FIFA seems about the entire ordeal.
Blatter is in Zurich, waiting to take the stage on Friday for the FIFA Congress.
He’s up for re-election, and he’ll likely win again just like he has the last three elections.
The European soccer body, UEFA, has called for the election to be postponed, but FIFA has ignored those calls.
They’ll vote for Blatter regardless of the charges, the allegations of corruption and the proof of death that should hang over his head but somehow don’t.
They’ll act like nothing happened in Qatar, as if the country deemed to be too hot in summer for soccer had won the bid fairly rather than with a $5 million bribe.
"Let me be clear: such misconduct has no place in football and we will ensure that those who engage in it are put out of the game," Blatter said in a statement Wednesday.
The misconduct has had a blatant and condonable place under Blatter, and if he’s a man of his word, he should step down and not seek re-election if he actually cares about the integrity of the game.
Follow Graham Hall on Twitter @Graham311
Federal agents carry out boxes of evidence taken from the headquarters of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF,) Wednesday, May 27, 2015, in Miami Beach, Fla. Swiss prosecutors opened criminal proceedings into FIFA's awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, only hours after seven soccer officials were arrested Wednesday pending extradition to the U.S. in a separate probe of "rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted" corruption.
