By Sam Laird From Mashable

Analysis
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during last summer’s World Cup, an activist named Julia Mariano told me about being chased through city streets by police firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters. Mariano and her compatriots had been protesting the global mega-event’s human costs in a country with massive income disparity and social inequality, yet found themselves running for — they felt — their lives.

The chase happened thousands of miles from the Zurich, Switzerland, headquarters of FIFA, global soccer’s governing body. But the fear and injustice Mariano felt tied directly back to what’s long been regarded by soccer fans as the most corrupt organization in all of sports. Everything FIFA has touched in recent years — from bidding processes and host events, to World Cups and internal elections — has felt tainted by payoffs, bribery, glad-handing and nepotism.

In a sport as globally popular and economically powerful as soccer, such corruption and the odiousness it breeds goes much deeper than a few fat cats lining their pockets in corporate boardrooms. Unlike the comparatively trivial Deflategate scandal in New England, this has trickle-down effects with real, human consequences.

For proof, consider Mariano’s experience. For another extreme example, consider the hundreds of Nepalese migrant workers who have died toiling to build infrastructure for an utterly abominable 2022 World Cup in Qatar that was awarded to the sweltering Middle Eastern country under the most dubious circumstances.

That context, as much as anything, is why the global soccer community reacted with a resounding cheer when the U.S. Justice Department orchestrated a raid of a ritzy Zurich hotel early Wednesday to arrest top FIFA officials. Fourteen people have so far been indicted on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.

They call soccer the beautiful game, but FIFA has for years been an ever-growing stain upon its majesty. Close followers of the sport have long considered FIFA rotten. But Wednesday’s big news break that led home pages of websites around the world has now illuminated the organization’s rotten core for casual fans and people who typically pay no mind to sports at all.

In other words, FIFA is — finally, finally — beginning to get some of the comeuppance it deserves. FIFA’s slogan, “For the Game. For the World,” is a bitterly ironic joke among soccer aficionados. FIFA has long since besmirched the game itself. As a result, the organization has contributed to making life worse for everyday humans in far corners of the world; again, consider Brazil and Qatar, for starters.

U.S. law enforcement said Wednesday’s hotel raid in Zurich is just the start, too.

“This is the beginning of our effort, not the end,” Kelly T. Currie, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a press conference on Wednesday morning.

Already, the list of allegations reads like something you’d find in a paperback sold in an airport bookstore: errand-boys sent on international flights to retrieve briefcases full of cash; shell companies set up overseas in tax-lax countries; a whistleblower who kept a $6,000-per-month apartment for his cats; votes on important elections sold for millions of dollars; bribes, kickbacks and payoffs galore.

The list goes on. All it’s missing in order to be a full-on Mario Puzo novel is some buried bodies. But then again, we already have those in Qatar.

Of course, there is much left to come in the saga that began with Wednesday morning’s raid. Indicting people from overseas is easier said than done, and will likely take some time to actually execute. Legal defenses will be mounted. The DOJ’s main whistleblower, an American named Chuck Blazer, could have many beans left to spill. FIFA itself is already scrambling to get ahead of the story. What becomes of Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s reviled leader and arguably the most powerful person in sports, is far from determined.

But big wheels are now in motion, and that’s only a good thing. Soccer fans deserve a FIFA that’s sprayed with bleach, scrubbed through every nook and cranny, and bathed in disinfectant. Players deserve the same. But most of all, the countless lives tangentially touched by FIFA executives’ greed, corruption and cynicism deserve some semblance of justice. Again, start by thinking back to Nepalese migrants dying in Qatar and Brazilians being chased through the streets by police firing tear gas.

“I think FIFA has a lot of soul-searching to do,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Wednesday.

As many soccer fans have long known, FIFA as it stands now has no soul to search. But maybe — hopefully — Wednesday’s raid in Zurich will begin to change that.

IMAGE:
Walter De Gregorio, FIFA Director of Communications and Public Affairs, addresses the media during a press conference at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, Wednesday, May 27, 2015.IMAGE: ENNIO LEANZA/KEYSTONE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

For more on this story go to: http://mashable.com/2015/05/27/fifa-corruption/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Related stories:

Here’s how the U.S. was able to charge international soccer officials

By Colin Daileda From Mashable

The United States government rocked the world of international soccer on Wednesday by announcing charges of corruption against several high-ranking FIFA officials.

The charges — which name 14 powerful FIFA officials and sports marketing executives, and include allegations of racketeering, wire fraud and money-laundering — note that much of the alleged criminal activity took place outside of the United States. Several of the charged officials were apprehended early on Wednesday in Zurich, Switzerland.

Though FIFA is a global operation, the U.S. charged the officials and executives with violating U.S. banking laws.

“All of these defendants abused the U.S. financial system and violated U.S. law, and we intend to hold them accountable,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Though the U.S. officials present at the press conference didn’t go into much detail about how the charges came about, they did discuss the web of alleged bribes that marketing company executives often paid to FIFA officials to ensure their companies were promoted at FIFA events.

Bribes were often funneled through the U.S. banking system, Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly Currie said at the press conference.

According to Lynch and other U.S. officials, one of the most corrupt parts of FIFA is the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), a division of FIFA that encompasses the United States and is headquartered in Miami. CONCACAF World Cup qualifying tournaments were allegedly marred by bribes, as was the CONCACAF Champions League.

According to The New York Times, the Department of Justice is able to bring charges against FIFA officials and marketing executives in much the same way it can bring charges against a suspect in a case of international terrorism. If a suspected criminal has any link to the United States, the U.S. may have authority to charge them with a crime.

Lynch said the next step in the case will be to ask the Swiss government to extradite the suspects to the U.S., where they would face trial.

IMAGES:
Loretta-lynch U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch last week.IMAGE: CLIFF OWEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
An FBI agent outside the offices of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football on Wednesday in Miami Beach, Florida.
IMAGE: WILFREDO LEE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

For more on this story go to: http://mashable.com/2015/05/27/how-the-us-charged-fifa-officials/

American CONCACAF exec who ratted out FIFA to FBI was just as corrupt
From Deadspin
The source of much of the information the Department of Justice accumulated on its way to sledgehammering FIFA is one man: Chuck Blazer, former CONCACAF bigwig, member of Sepp Blatter’s inner circle, and eventual FBI informant.
But don’t think he made his way to the pinnacle of notoriously corrupt FIFA without getting his own hands dirty (or, more accurately, without getting more than a few coins stuck to those muddied fingers). As we’ve laid out before, Blazer was just as bad as the people he turned on, he just heard the cavalry coming first and decided to turn around and point the cops to the secret rendezvous spot.
As mentioned in today’s indictment and previously reported in this great Daily News exposé, Blazer did so well for himself that he kept an apartment in tony Trump Tower just for his cats. Below, you’ll find one of our stories laying out some more of Blazer’s nefarious behavior.

Original post by Luke O’Brien on DEADSPIN
FIFA Whistleblower Chuck Blazer Is Too Fat To Fit In Town Cars, Has “Trousered” Millions From International Soccer

Remember Chuck Blazer? He’s the American FIFA executive who posts pictures of himself wearing boring Halloween costumes and posing with his pet parrot Max, as if cutesy snapshots might convince us that a Santa Claus imposter isn’t as scummy as everyone else attached to FIFA.

Blazer blew the whistle on an alleged bribery scheme involving Mohammed bin Hammam, who helped Qatar win the 2022 World Cup. At the time of the blowing, Bin Hammam was running for FIFA president against Sepp Blatter, one of the most dangerous megalomaniacs the world has ever seen. Blatter suspended Bin Hammam, his only presidential opponent, got re-elected, then commissioned an internal FIFA investigation of Bin Hammam. As you might imagine, it did not end well for the Qatari, who was banned from FIFA for life on Saturday. Bin Hammam called Blatter a “dictator” and promised to contest the decision in outside courts.

So what are we to make of Blazer’s role in this? Are we to think that he was motivated by a selfless interest to preserve the sanctity of international soccer? We are not. As recently reported by Andrew Jennings, Blazer “trousered” almost $2 million in commissions from soccer marketing deals last year. He made even more in 2009. “Over the last five years,” Jennings writes, “Blazer has paid himself $9.6 million in bonuses on top of his pay as general secretary of Concacaf, the confederation of footballing nations in the Caribbean, central and North America.”

Blazer’s riches are funneled through one of his private companies in the Cayman Islands and into offshore banks. This is the New World version of the Swiss banking schemes employed by Blatter and his European cronies. From Jennings:

Blazer’s contract specified that he was hired from one of his private companies, Sportvertising, subsequently domiciled in the Cayman Islands. This company would receive Blazer’s never disclosed salary and crucially, 10% of ‘all sponsorships and TV rights fees from all sources received by Concacaf.’ According to documents obtained by Transparency in Sport, Blazer’s payments were channelled offshore to accounts in the name of Sportvertising at Barclays Bank, Grand Cayman, and the First Caribbean International Bank, Bahamas.
Jenning adds a few more nice details. For one, Blazer lives in Trump Tower. For two, he is “so broad of girth that he cannot fit into the largest of FIFA’s executive saloon cars and has to be transported in a luxury van.”

But it’s not like this is uncommon for a FIFA executive, despite Blazer being more corpulent than most. The New York Times published a story last week about FIFA’s money trough and the hogs that lap from it:

The 24 members of the executive committee of FIFA – the association that governs the global game and organizes the World Cup – form an elite all-men’s club, reaping annual salaries and bonuses of up to $300,000 in addition to their various perks. For that, they are asked to do little more than show up for a few private meetings each year to discuss rules, sanctions and legal issues and, most important, to eventually vote on which country will host the quadrennial championship.
Also distressing: In its Zurich headquarters, FIFA has a “meditation room” made entirely of onyx and looking not unlike something Tony Montana would install in his basement.

For more on this story go to: http://deadspin.com/5824566/fifa-whistleblower-chuck-blazer-is-too-fat-to-fit-in-town-cars-has-made-millions-off-international-soccer/1707233188