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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

#191

Post by _nedR »

austenallred wrote: post #22

It seems like the DOJ is doing the same thing they would do against a gang; get a few lower-level people to take a plea deal and hand over the kingpin. There's no way Blatter gets through this unscathed. It will be interesting to see if the World Cup will be moved now; it never made sense to have it in Qatar in the first place (no infrastructure, incredibly hot during the summer, hundreds of migrant workers dying and…

Funny, that everyone seems to miss the fact that the current indictments actually relate to corruption w.r.t. the previous tournaments and world cups hosted in USA, South America and South Africa. Nobody in /r/soccer seems to care about that.

Of course, don't let the facts get in the way of all the Qatar/Russia bashing.

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

#192

Post by mladenkovacevic »

hvs wrote: post #143
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #111

White House makes the first step towards enforcing mass boycott of the Russian World Cup as punishment for flexing its muscles in its old spheres of influence. I'm all for dismantling and/or restructuring FIFA, but the timing is rather opportune.

"Flexing its muscles in its old spheres of influence" is an interesting way to say, "invading and taking over another country."

Is it interesting? I don't know, violations of international law have taken on many imaginative and interesting names in the recent past but I think the one I used is rather uninteresting comparatively.

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

#193

Post by jredwards »

petepete wrote: post #32
austenallred wrote: post #22

It seems like the DOJ is doing the same thing they would do against a gang; get a few lower-level people to take a plea deal and hand over the kingpin. There's no way Blatter gets through this unscathed. It will be interesting to see if the World Cup will be moved now; it never made sense to have it in Qatar in the first place (no infrastructure, incredibly hot during the summer, hundreds of migrant workers dying and…

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…

It pretty quickly became the top post in a dozen different subreddits. Last night on r/all, 6 of the top ten posts were links to the same NYTimes article. I'm pretty impressed with the level of interest -- probably just my American bias.

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

#194

Post by supergirl »

austenallred wrote: post #185
supergirl wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can claim anything to make the other look bad. Russia claims the allegations are unfounded speculation.

Conversely, anyone can claim that any fact is "unfounded speculation." There are arrests being made and cases put forward based on this. So while it's not yet a finished matter, saying, "Nothing has been proven" at every piece of evidence is a bit of a cop-out. Pointing out what evidence there is does not qualify, as you claim, as "Putin slander."

Conversely, anyone can claim that any fact is "unfounded speculation". Yes, that was exactly my point.

I have not seen any first hand evidence. None of us have, I would say. Or has it been released? Otherwise, it is slander.

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

#195

Post by austenallred »

supergirl wrote: post #194
austenallred wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, anyone can claim that any fact is "unfounded speculation." There are arrests being made and cases put forward based on this. So while it's not yet a finished matter, saying, "Nothing has been proven" at every piece of evidence is a bit of a cop-out. Pointing out what evidence there is does not qualify, as you claim, as "Putin slander."

Conversely, anyone can claim that any fact is "unfounded speculation". Yes, that was exactly my point. I have not seen any first hand evidence. None of us have, I would say. Or has it been released? Otherwise, it is slander.

Pointing out what allegations exist is not slander. Especially when specifically defining them as allegations.

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

#196

Post by [deleted] »

_nedR wrote: post #186
austenallred wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for the granting of the World Cup, what has so upset the Anglophonic world is that someone else outspent England and US efforts to purchase the World Cup. Also, you know, the thousands of people killed in slave labor to build the stadiums, the fact that Qatar is 120+ degrees Fahrenheit during the summer (50 Celsius), making playing a soccer tournament completely unreasonable, and the fact that this "outspending"…

Oh, stop your bleeding hearts. Speaking as an Indian who has lived in the Gulf (and has family who has worked in these construction sites you speak of), I find it immensely ironic that a bunch of former colonial white-majority countries (the biggest benificiaries of slavery) are lecturing Qataris on slavery and human rights. Yes, the labour laws there suck and are in much need of reform, but the levels of criticism t…

[deleted]

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

#197

Post by notsony »

austenallred wrote: post #184
notsony wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point is of course true. Your second point about "false flag" makes no sense whatsoever. EDIT: This is why HackerNews is going to the dogs. This perfectly reasonable comment has been downvoted numerous times.

It's being downvoted because talking about the Clinton administration's financial backing in this thread is off-topic and a little absurd, and this comment is seen as an extension of the first.

But talking about an investigation into FIFA is somehow on-topic and relevant to HackerNews?!

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

#198

Post by _nedR »

austenallred wrote: post #190
_nedR wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, stop your bleeding hearts. Speaking as an Indian who has lived in the Gulf (and has family who has worked in these construction sites you speak of), I find it immensely ironic that a bunch of former colonial white-majority countries (the biggest benificiaries of slavery) are lecturing Qataris on slavery and human rights. Yes, the labour laws there suck and are in much need of reform, but the levels of criticism t…

> The levels of criticism this has reached crosses into downright racism. What the fuck? Thousands of people have died building soccer stadiums and people are saying that is wrong. That has nothing to do with race whatsoever.

>Thousands of people have died building soccer stadiums and people are saying that is wrong.

Over 1100 people have died in a span of a few weeks from the heat wave currently happening in India. This sort of thing happens. Obviously, the Qataris could be doing a lot more to reduce deaths and improve condition of workers, but this is not exactly news, nor is it due to slavery.

I still think that a lot of the hate haslittle to do with slavery and more to do with the fact that :-

1. Football fans from England/Europe/America pissed off that they couldn't host the world cup and are annoyed that the Qataris were able to buy their way into the world cup. This group has been running an effective smear campaign ever since the selection happened.

2. Undercurrent racism from football fans and non-fans (Why is this article even in Hacker News? Are there that many football, sorry soccer fans here?)

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

#199

Post by dragonwriter »

notsony wrote: post #197
austenallred wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being downvoted because talking about the Clinton administration's financial backing in this thread is off-topic and a little absurd, and this comment is seen as an extension of the first.

But talking about an investigation into FIFA is somehow on-topic and relevant to HackerNews?!

> But talking about an investigation into FIFA is somehow on-topic and relevant to HackerNews?!

To the extent that the FIFA discussion is inappropriate for HN, the correct response is to flag the article, not post things off-topic to the article in the thread.

Whether the FIFA-related article is appropriate to HN is completely irrelevant, in any case, to discussion of whether the attack on Clinton is itself on-topic to the thread discussing the FIFA article.

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