FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges; Face Extradition to U.S • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, May 28, 2015, 1:05 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #165

Bud wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, recent experience with Olympics and World Cups alike shows that the stadiums often lie fallow, a complete waste of resources. Promised "transport improvements" are often never built in the first place, or built at a level far below what was promised to local residents. Tourism money fails to recoup what was invested.

Exactly. The World Cup being what it is could be played in a public park, and people would still skip their kid's birth to watch it. And yet FIFA insists on a bunch of expensive stadiums each time.

One assumes the stadiums must meet a variety of criteria for power supply, cabling, vehicular access, camera gantries, internet connectivity, commentary positions, etc.

Probably easier to build new ones than adapt old (cf the demolition and reconstruction of Wembley to fix these and other issues.)

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

#262

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, May 28, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

maskd wrote: post #213

mbreese wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil also has an Olympics coming up and a healthy national soccer league. I'm fairly certain they will be able to reuse a lot of those stadiums, so the benefit of that construction will extend for quite a while longer.

That has not happened, though: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/11/405955547/b... Besides the issues with building stadiums in states without a football tradition, Brazil is facing the problem that people just don't go to the stadium much. For example, the national league, which finished its third round last week, has had only 3 games with more than 20000 spectators so far. That was already a big problem…

> For example, the national league, which finished its third round last week, has had only 3 games with more than 20000 spectators so far.

That's quite low - only the bottom two Premiership teams averaged less than that for 2014-15. But presumably it'll pick up over the season?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_home_attendances_in_non... implies there's at least 3 clubs averaging >20k a season recently.

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

#263

Post by tripzilch » Thu, May 28, 2015, 1:21 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #242

mynameisvlad wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver 2010 is a fantastic example of just that. Yes, there were some developments which could have gone better (Olympic Village, for one), but some much needed infrastructure and stadium upgrades came out of it: - Sea to Sky Highway went from being a ridiculously dangerous road between Vancouver and Whistler to being a pretty good road (still twisty, but there's only so much that can be done about that), and sore…

This is exactly what I’m talking about – Vancouver 2010, or Kiel+Munich 1972 are perfect examples for reusing existing infrastructure and upgrading it. Even London 2012 was a great example – reusing infrastructure, upgrading it, etc is a good way to do it. Another good idea: One of the recent UEFA cups was hosted by two countries together (actually, several of them were). Which is another good idea, several less deve…

So that's about .. once or twice per century?

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

#264

Post by splittist » Thu, May 28, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #260

splittist wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money laundering is a recent invention as a crime. None of the actions involved are actually criminal in themselves, it's just that they (supposedly) make it harder for the authorities to detect something they might want to be obvious, to assist in the War on Drugs, or tax avoidance, or (more recently) terrorism. As to "fraud", I actually referred to "wire fraud conspiracy", which is, more or less, once having had so…

Well, "recent" is relative. Modern money laundering procedures started to develop in 1920's and 1930's; the proceeds of crime were hidden with banking schemes, and Meyer Lansky eventually even bought a Swiss bank to help do it for the American mob. But I would guess that already ancient Chinese criminal gangs did something similar, to make the proceeds of illegal activities appear legal.

Money laundering is old. Money laundering being its own stand-alone crime is recent.

(And part of the modern trend of criminalizing the living of one's life in a way not maximally transparent to the government.)