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FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

nytimes.com

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Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#71

Post by akfanta »

kijin wrote: post #68
thrillgore wrote: post #57

My understanding is that FIFA can ban countries from the organization for whatever reasons it sees fit. This probably cost the US any future world cups for the foreseeable future.

Why do you think the US cares? For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. For the US, on the other hand, soccer is just one of many sports. In fact, the US is one of very few countries where soccer is not the sport. Americans are nowhere near as desperate for soccer as FIFA is desperate for American money.

> For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue.

Are you for real? This statement is so ridiculous that I don't even know where to start. You do realize football is by a huge margin, the most popular sports on this planet, right?

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#73

Post by mfringel »

flexie wrote: post #25
iaw wrote: post #2

Wow. I'm impressed and somewhat surprised that the U.S. would be the entity to enforce this given the relative lack of presence FIFA has in the U.S. Maybe it's because the U.S. lost the world cup (as in hosting privileges)?

It's a bit ironic that it takes what is almost a non-soccer country to fix soccer. But US corporations (Coca-Cola, McDonalds etc.) are major sponsors of FIFA so the US has a legitimate interest in prosecuting FIFA officials.

In addition (as mentioned above), FIFA sanctions don't mean all that much to the US, so the US has a lot less to lose by prosecuting this, both financially and in the court of public opinion.

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#74

Post by sswezey »

akfanta wrote: post #71
kijin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the US cares? For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. For the US, on the other hand, soccer is just one of many sports. In fact, the US is one of very few countries where soccer is not the sport. Americans are nowhere near as desperate for soccer as FIFA is desperate for American money.

> For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. Are you for real? This statement is so ridiculous that I don't even know where to start. You do realize football is by a huge margin, the most popular sports on this planet, right?

This article talks about the last world cup final:

http://www.espnfc.com/fifa-world-cup/story/1950567/world-cup...

The US had 43.8 million people watching the final (in English and Spanish). Germany (who was in the final) had 34.65 million people watching. Even if Argentina had ever single person in their country watching, they'd only have 42.6 million people watching (wiki estimate). Granted Brazil almost definitely has higher viewership, but the US is definitely one of the largest.

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#75

Post by sjwright »

oliyoung wrote: post #20
sschueller wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm disgusted that the Swiss let this thing go on for so long and still give FIFA non-profit status.

Not just FIFA, the IOC aren't exactly squeaky clean either

Certainly, but the Olympics is something of a 20th century anachronism, celebrating a bunch of sports that few people have any genuine interest in. It is slowly becoming little more than a sports-themed fireworks roadshow.

FIFA controls the most popular and most profitable sport in the world. Period.

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#76

Post by kijin »

akfanta wrote: post #71
kijin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the US cares? For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. For the US, on the other hand, soccer is just one of many sports. In fact, the US is one of very few countries where soccer is not the sport. Americans are nowhere near as desperate for soccer as FIFA is desperate for American money.

> For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. Are you for real? This statement is so ridiculous that I don't even know where to start. You do realize football is by a huge margin, the most popular sports on this planet, right?

For the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Fox paid $425 million for U.S. English-language broadcasting rights, and NBC's Telemundo paid another $600 million for Spanish-language rights [1]. That's already a billion dollars from the U.S.

By comparison, FIFA's worldwide revenue from broadcasting rights for the 2014 World Cup was around $2.4 billion [2].

American soccer fans might only constitute a small fraction of soccer fans worldwide, but they watch more ads and have deeper pockets than most of the rest. A billion poor fans don't make FIFA any money.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2014/06/09/american-w...

[2] http://www.statista.com/statistics/380788/revenue-of-the-201...

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#77

Post by jkot »

splittist wrote: post #53

These are "FIFA Officials" in the same way that the representatives countries send to the UN are "UN Officials", or US Congressfolk are "US Officials". They aren't people who actually do the work at FIFA. $150 million over 20 years for sports rights in Latin America seems to indicate pretty slim margins. I wonder what the deal was with bribes and kickbacks over the selection of the host country for the 2010 World Cup…

On world-cup FIFA saved hundreds of millions in Brazil, just from tax exemption. Total revenue was 4.5 billions.

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/bodies/02/36/77...

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#78

Post by btdollar »

iwwr wrote: post #65
petepete wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be the top post ever in /r/soccer in no time, it's already fourth and was only submitted four hours ago. I truly hope that Blatter is ousted, the Qatar decision is reversed and given to a nation that with a less-appalling human rights record and some actual interest in football. I can't name a single Qatari club or player and know nothing of their league (other than Gabriel Batistuta played there for a year at…

Apparently, hosting a World Cup has become a net negative to a country. The costs (significant and increasing) go to the government and the profits go to FIFA and the sponsors.

Just like with the Olympics. Does FIFA force the government to pass censorious laws as well?

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#79

Post by nmrm2 »

akfanta wrote: post #71
kijin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the US cares? For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. For the US, on the other hand, soccer is just one of many sports. In fact, the US is one of very few countries where soccer is not the sport. Americans are nowhere near as desperate for soccer as FIFA is desperate for American money.

> For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. Are you for real? This statement is so ridiculous that I don't even know where to start. You do realize football is by a huge margin, the most popular sports on this planet, right?

The quote should have stated "largest single source" rather the "single largest source".

And note that the quote says "SOURCE of advertising revenue", not "viewership".

It's not so hard to believe, given that a lot of the multi-nationals that advertise aggressively in FIFA are American-held... Americans don't have to like football to believe that advertising during the world cup could be profitable...

Re: FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S

#80

Post by thrillgore »

sswezey wrote: post #74
akfanta wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For FIFA, the US is the single largest source of television audience and therefore advertising revenue. Are you for real? This statement is so ridiculous that I don't even know where to start. You do realize football is by a huge margin, the most popular sports on this planet, right?

This article talks about the last world cup final: http://www.espnfc.com/fifa-world-cup/story/1950567/world-cup... The US had 43.8 million people watching the final (in English and Spanish). Germany (who was in the final) had 34.65 million people watching. Even if Argentina had ever single person in their country watching, they'd only have 42.6 million people watching (wiki estimate). Granted Brazil almost definitely…

Because ESPN, being the broadcast partner at the time wouldn't fudge the numbers. Riiiiight.
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