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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

#81

Post by [deleted] »

martijn_himself wrote: post #59
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…

Blatter has survived multiple arrests of senior FIFA officials in the past, there is no indication this time will be different. The only way Blatter will step down is if a major football country association or group of associations (e.g. Germany, Spain, Holland) threaten to leave FIFA if he doesn't.

[deleted]

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

#82

Post by riffraff »

akfanta wrote: post #70
austenallred wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically soccer-related infrastructure, i.e. stadiums. The United States could host four World Cups simultaneously without having to build any more stadiums. Qatar has to build almost everything from scratch.

> Specifically soccer-related infrastructure Do you have any sources for the claim? As far as I know, football is quite popular in middle east. Football clubs in that area have consistently been strong contenders in the AFC champions league. This means they have a healthy and competitive domestic league. Claiming they don't have soccer-related infrastructure is pretty ridiculous.

WC-level stadiums are not the same thing as normal stadiums, i.e. a stadium for 20k people is not ok. They are planning to build 9 and expand 3, and they are actually going to dismantle part of them after they are used. Wikipedia has some stuff[0][1].

[0] " Local organizers are planning to build 9 new stadiums and expand 3 existing stadiums for this event." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Football

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_bid#P...

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

#83

Post by ondiekijunior »

martijn_himself wrote: post #59
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…

Blatter has survived multiple arrests of senior FIFA officials in the past, there is no indication this time will be different. The only way Blatter will step down is if a major football country association or group of associations (e.g. Germany, Spain, Holland) threaten to leave FIFA if he doesn't.

Even if hey left, with 200 member countries it wouldnt amount to much of anything. UEFA(Europe's Governing Body) may oppose Blatter, but this guy is a better politician than most politician and the fact that Football is next to religion means he can afford to be as opaque as he can get away with, because how the federations are structured from the grassroots allow for very little oversight.

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

#84

Post by hav »

bontoJR wrote: post #24
sschueller wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blatter can't show his face anymore even in some of the most nobel restaurants in Zürich because other guests will heckle him. He needs to go and so does the non-profit status of FIFA.

For Swiss people, Blatter is a kind of reason to be ashamed. Funny fact: every single time I am abroad and someone reminds me we have Blatter, I freak out... I hope he will get caught if he's involved and that his face will disappear forever from the football world. That sport is amazing, but in the last (almost) 20 years, it has been ruled by a man with a dubious integrity.

> Funny fact: every single time I am abroad and someone reminds me we have Blatter, I freak out...

Pardon my ignorance, but why would this make you actually freak out? Are you related? I'm not trying to be obtuse, it just doesn't make sense to me.

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

#85

Post by martijn_himself »

ondiekijunior wrote: post #83
martijn_himself wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blatter has survived multiple arrests of senior FIFA officials in the past, there is no indication this time will be different. The only way Blatter will step down is if a major football country association or group of associations (e.g. Germany, Spain, Holland) threaten to leave FIFA if he doesn't.

Even if hey left, with 200 member countries it wouldnt amount to much of anything. UEFA(Europe's Governing Body) may oppose Blatter, but this guy is a better politician than most politician and the fact that Football is next to religion means he can afford to be as opaque as he can get away with, because how the federations are structured from the grassroots allow for very little oversight.

If a major football country like Germany or Spain left FIFA the FIFA World Cup would lose one of its strongest competitors and it wouldn't be a World Cup- FIFA would fall apart like a house of cards. Blatter would have to step down because of popular pressure on him (my humble opinion). The chance of a national association 'seceding' from FIFA is very, very unlikely though. I agree with your assesment of Blatter's shrewdness.

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

#87

Post by psykovsky »

jgreen10 wrote: post #52
hcho wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of infrastructure is not the crazy bit. Everyone knows that they have the money to throw at the problem. The fact that all games of WC will be played in one city is the problem. All the fans in contact for a prolonged span...It won't end well.

National football fans are not like club football fans. There is very little hooliganism in international football, nor would anyone have any energy for it in the searing heat.

So little they even wrote a book about it.

Violence and the Euro 2004, in Portuguese.

http://ielt.fcsh.unl.pt/ielt/pt/acontecendo/no-passado/132

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

#88

Post by SEJeff »

aikah wrote: post #54
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…

/s/hundreds/thousands working under the kalafa , the euphemism for slavery in middle east. Slavery exists everywhere(yes even in Europe and US) but it's generally not something organized at the state level, it is usually illegal.

Where does slavery exist in the US? You know we had a war about that an all... It didn't end up super well for the slavers.

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

#89

Post by akfanta »

kijin wrote: post #76
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?

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…

> The same package cost ESPN just $100 million for the previous two World Cups, in 2010 and 2014

It's clear the TV broadcasting price has jumped rapidly over the years. You can't compare the current revenue with a future deal. 100 million over two world cups is still a tiny portion compared to 2.4 billion in one world cup.

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

#90

Post by beedogs »

lmm wrote: post #56
austenallred wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically soccer-related infrastructure, i.e. stadiums. The United States could host four World Cups simultaneously without having to build any more stadiums. Qatar has to build almost everything from scratch.

If they're willing and able to build it, on time for the cup, that doesn't seem to inherently present a problem (notwithstanding issues about labour conditions etc., I'm talking specifically just about the "no infrastructure" point).

It's a total waste of resources, energy, money... they're single-use stadiums. Most will go derelict after the tournament ends.
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