In
recent years, FIFA has made news not just for enforcing rules on the
soccer field but also for allegedly breaking them off it. The body that governs soccer, the most popular sport in the world, is a multibillion dollar behemoth. Great power, yes. Great responsibility? Not so much, critics say.
FIFA has been regularly accused of bribery and kickbacks, allegations that reached fever pitch after it awarded Russia and Qatar the World Cup in 2018 and 2022, respectively. In the aftermath, the group carried out its own internal investigation and cleared itself. So why is the United States, a country where soccer ranks far below football and basketball in popularity, now taking top FIFA officials to court?
FIFA has been regularly accused of bribery and kickbacks, allegations that reached fever pitch after it awarded Russia and Qatar the World Cup in 2018 and 2022, respectively. In the aftermath, the group carried out its own internal investigation and cleared itself. So why is the United States, a country where soccer ranks far below football and basketball in popularity, now taking top FIFA officials to court?
In order to understand that, we'll have to take you through a journey that, as you'll see, involves Americans at all stages.
James Comey and Loretta Lynch:
As
we mentioned earlier, Garcia is a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of New York. The guy who held that job before him? James
Comey.
He's the current FBI director. And the developments today are a result of a three-year FBI investigation.
Then there's the second New York connection: Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
She oversaw the case in Brooklyn before she was appointed to lead the Justice Department.
But why did U.S. authorities start looking into FIFA to begin with?
When FIFA cleared itself of wrong doing, the FBI wasn't ready to do the same.
It wanted to know whether any of the allegations of bribe-taking and kickbacks by FIFA officials took place on American soil.
And
it knew it was on the right track, especially after it secured the
cooperation of a former top FIFA official -- and an American -- named
Chuck Blazer.
Blazer had found himself
in a bind. He allegedly hadn't paid his taxes for many, many years and
was looking at serious prison time. So he became an informant, who
provided documents and recordings of meetings with FIFA colleagues that
hinted at not-so-kosher dealings, law enforcement officials said.
But still, why would the U.S. care?
Michael Garcia:
The World
Cup is a big deal. It comes around every four years and when it does,
it's the biggest sporting spectacle on the planet. It's a financial
windfall for any country that wins the rights to host it. Think of all
those tourism dollars. So nations go for it with a ferocious intensity.
But
when FIFA awarded the 2018 games to Russia and followed that with the
even more head-scratching choice of Qatar in 2022, critics and other
governments cried foul. They smelled shenanigans. They wanted a
transparent account of the bidding process to see if Qatar and Russia
cut any corners.
FIFA brought in
Michael Garcia, a one-time U.S. attorney for the Southern District of
New York. He was tasked to look into the behavior of the two nations.
The man spent 19 months scrutinizing the bids to host the two tournaments.
By the time he was done, his findings stretched to 350 pages.
So what did FIFA do?
It suppressed the report, released a puny 42-page summary -- and cleared itself of any wrongdoing in November.
Garcia hit back. He labeled FIFA's findings on his report "incomplete and erroneous."
.gif)
.jpg)
.png)
0 comments:
Post a Comment