Breaking: Six top FIFA officials arrested on money laundering and racketeering charges

[Danny Jarman]

My thinking is this is all about stripping Russia of the 2018 World Cup...

Why else would the USA be involved? They have absolutely no business here, no matter how corrupt FIFA is.

We will see if i'm right...

[Magda Hassan]

To a large extent I think this also but how to they say that Russia is corrupt in this matter without also saying that their good friend Qatar is also. Qatar clearly won their bid due to some sort of payola. There is the possibility that they are giving Jordan a favor as their man is the most likely replacement to Blatter. But it is still problematic for their good friend Qatar. Perhaps they want to put pressure on them?

[David Guyatt]

My thinking is this is all about stripping Russia of the 2018 World Cup...

Why else would the USA be involved? They have absolutely no business here, no matter how corrupt FIFA is.

We will see if i'm right...

I agree entirely. The US is meddling in matters they should not be involved in and Putin's complaint about this is well founded.

Even as we speak there are calls for the WC to be stripped from Russia --- just more of the ant-Russian propaganda campaign being run by the US. Having said that, of course, rumours have circulated ever since FIFA awarded the WC to Russia that it resulted from bribery.

From Forbes:

5/28/2015 @ 4:57AM 6,178 views

Sanction FIFA And Putin At The Same Time: Take The 2018 World Cup From Russia

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People watch as the facade of the historical Bolshoi Theatre is illuminated with the official emblem of the 2018 FIFA World Cup to be held in Russia in central Moscow on late October 28, 2014. World football boss Sepp Blatter on Tuesday opposed any boycott of the 2018 World Cup in Russia and backed the huge preparations undertaken by President Vladimir Putin's government for the mega event. AFP PHOTO/KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV (Photo credit should read KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)

The soccer World Cup gives the host country prestige, publicity, and international recognition. The World Cups in 2010 and 2014 hosted by South Africa and Braziltwo BRICS countriessignaled their arrival on the world scene. A third BRICS member, Russia, is scheduled to host in 2018. The two largest public relations feathers in Vladimir Putin's hat are the Sochi Olympics and now the upcoming World Cup.
Nothing could be worse for Putin than losing the 2018 World Cup; it would be more severe than the economic recession and Russia's declining living standards. Russians can live without imported foods and Turkish vacations, but they may not tolerate being branded as a rogue nation not deserving a World Cup.
FIFA, the international federation of soccer, chooses the venue of the quadrennial World Cup by a vote of its directors. Competition among applicants is intense, and the lobbying is extreme. Russia was selected as the 2018 host country by FIFA in December 2010 when a beaming Vladimir Putin and FIFA's four-term president, Sepp Blatter, congratulated each other.
FIFA has valuable assets to peddle, but they come at a price. FIFA has a reputation for corruption and scandal as it allots venues for the various soccer cups, the most important being the World Cup. FIFA critics question why Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022), with their questionable human rights reputations, were selected, especially after experts rated their proposals as among the weakest. When Russia won the 2018 event, British tabloidscomplained that Britain had lost to a "mafia state."
Things may be changing.
The US Justice Department has ordered the arrest and extradition to the United States of fourteen defendants associated with FIFA, including two of its vice presidents, who are charged with racketeering and corruption. The Justice Department has pledged to end FIFA's "corrupt practices," citing $150 million in bribes and kickbacks that have flowed through the US financial system. Swiss justice officials are coordinating with the US Justice Department. The European media are flooded with reports of bribes and under-the-table dealings of FIFA officers.
The Justice Department action has lent weight to the demand of thirteen prominent US senators, dated April 1, to FIFA president Blatter to relocate the 2018 World Cup from Moscow to a less controversial venue. A anti-FIFAdocumentary highlighted on German television discloses the criminal wheelings and dealings associated with Russia's successful bid for the World Cup, including a lucrative deal offered by Russia's Gazprom to a Cyprus businessman, who just happens to be one of FIFA's voting vice presidents, and its hiring of German soccer legend, Franz Beckenbauer, as its "sports diplomat."
Kremlin propaganda has shifted into high gear. In an on-camera interview, Russia's World Cup representative expressed surprise that the "armed conflict" in Ukraine could be considered a reason to relocate the 2018 World Cup. He intoned disdainfully that Russia has no involvement in Ukraine and that the Minsk Peace accord, brokered by Russia, has ended the conflict. Thus, he said, Russia's only role in Ukraine is that of a peacemaker. Russia's sports minister rushed before the cameras to declare that "Russia has nothing to hide." Blatterdeclared that "there are no boycotts" in international soccer and that "football [soccer] is an instrument of peace."

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[Danny Jarman]

Anti Russian hysteria is the post modern anti-semitism.

[Paul Rigby]

Anti Russian hysteria is the post modern anti-semitism.

"Colonel Cassad" rightly draws comparison with the destruction of Dominique Strauss-Kahn by the Americans:

http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2206190.html

Any European official, in pretty much any capacity, adjudged insufficiently pro-American/anti-Russian would appear to be fair game to the totalitarians in Washington & New York.

[James Ruby]

The latest official emblem looks a little like a nuclear strike, with humanity being sucked up into the stratosphere. And, off topic, what exactly is that spectacular ordnance going off in Yemen recently? Back on topic; beyond kicking a ball around for fun, football has sucked for decades. I gave up on it when Trevor Francis became the first million pound transfer 'star'.

[Tracy Riddle]

I like and respect the Russian people, but I'm not a fan of Putin. How many of his critics have been shot or poisoned in the last 15 years? He's as corrupt as any Western leader; he's just on a different team.
Qatar and all of those little Persian Gulf monarchies are horrible little slave states protected by the US military.

[Lauren Johnson]

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) Calling the Obama Administration's actions against the soccer organization "weak and ineffective," Senator John McCain on Thursday proposed military action to "dismantle and destroy FIFA once and for all."

"These are people who only understand one thing: force," McCain said on the floor of the United States Senate. "We must make FIFA taste the vengeful might and fury of the United States military."

McCain said that he was "completely unimpressed" by the Department of Justice's arrests of several top FIFA lieutenants this week, calling the action "the kind of Band-Aid solution that this Administration, sadly, has become famous for."

"Rounding up a few flunkies in a hotel is meaningless when the leader of FIFA remains at large," he said. "I will follow Sepp Blatter to the gates of Hell."

McCain requested a four-billion-dollar aid package for moderate elements within global soccer, and said that the United States should be prepared to put boots on the ground in Switzerland.

Calling the use of force against FIFA "long overdue," he placed the blame for the group's alarming growth squarely on the shoulders of the White House. "Barack Obama created FIFA," he said.

--satire

[Danny Jarman]

Blatter re-elected

British media foaming at the mouth and there are calls for a breakaway organisation

Suddenly democracy isn't so important ::

[Paul Rigby]

Blatter re-elected

British media foaming at the mouth and there are calls for a breakaway organisation

Suddenly democracy isn't so important ::

If you don't vote the Washington line, it doesn't count, and you're unlikely to get a second vote.