U.S. implodes soccer/football with FIFA arrests

I have to say, I can entirely believe that Blatter has enough plausible deniability to come out of this, if not unscathed, then at least out of jail and probably in charge of FIFA until the next election. Unlike the FA heads, he doesn’t really have any need to be personally corrupt, as opposed to turning a blind eye to it. All he had to do was curry favour, which he largely did by distributing World Cup proceeds to cash-starved nations. The big question for Blatter’s future is whether there was any bribery from sponsors and TV rights people.

Shocking:

World soccer boss Sepp Blatter was expected to be re-elected on Friday, defying growing calls for him to step down in the face of corruption scandals engulfing the sport’s governing body.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/29/us-soccer-fifa-arrests-idUSKBN0OC0B020150529

Self-interest is a helluva drug.

Well at most Blatter will have another 4 or 5 four-year-terms at the helm so the end is in sight!

FIFA likes to try to convince people it stands for sport and all of that, but really, it’s just a large, international club devoted to the perpetuation of a select group of plutocrats’ ever-increasing wealth. Sometimes the cynicism in me is so strong that I think that when you have dozens killed in riots or stampedes or whatnot at a soccer game, FIFA simply cackles and glories at the extent to which football mania has taken hold–a mania that while it might kill people in extreme cases, always generates massive revenues for the elites.

Then again, what sets FIFA apart from American pro leagues is simply the global extent. I’m not sure the NFL, MLB, or the NBA at their core act any differently, or only do so because US law makes them. Money is corrosive to sport even as it facilitates it.

There’s lots of noise from Platini about UEFAs power to disrupt FIFA events, but Platini is a lapdog of the Qatari’s. He pushed 2022 heavily, and his son works for the Qatari Royals.

Authorities need to make FIFA unpalatable for sponsors, all of whom have said “we are monitoring/we are concerned” for as long as FIFAs corruption issues been general knowledge… early 2000s? Anyway, only they matter.

It’s official – Blatter is re-elected.

In a rambling victory speech citing God and Allah, he said: "I am not perfect, nobody is perfect, but we will do a good job together I am sure.
“I take the responsibility to bring back Fifa where it should be… Let’s go Fifa! Let’s go Fifa!”

And Blatter is joining Putin and blaming it all on US political machinations and UK sour grapes. Who would have predicted that Russia would be FIFA’s bestest buddy?

A regime run by a dictator and rife with plutocratic corruption supports an organization rife with plutocratic corruption that gave it the 2018 World Cup? Shocker!

ikr…

Thank goodness we still have the NCAA.

The NCAA is incompetent, not corrupt

kwehhhhhhhhh

Exploitative. But, not corrupt.

Corrupt. But not corrupt.

kweeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The fact that Chapel Hill hasn’t received a Penn St. like punishment for 20+ yrs of academic fraud that goes back to Dean Smith yet proves some level of corruption.

No it doesn’t. It proves that it is inconsistent.

The NCAA is afraid to punish the big basketball schools these days. The football schools are a different story due to the fact the NCAA doesn’t generate revenue directly off them the way they do with basketball.

It took a lot longer for the NCAA to put the hammer down on USC. The case was only recently re-opened after the Wainstien report.

To a degree, this is UNC’s issue. The premiere public school in the state has been falsifying grades and degrees for (athletic) money. Why haven’t the Board of Trustees and the Governor done anything?

As best I can tell, the Academics there want to sweep it under the rug.

The USC case was football. NCAA doesn’t mind going after the big football schools.

Why haven’t the others done anything? Politics. If it was any other state school, the hammer would have been dropped for much, much less (and has been in the past)