Qatar World Cup - Helping Hand into Modernity or Easy (& Dirty) Money for FIFA?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by neonplanet40

I don't understand why this hasn't already happened. IF they won't then it seems they are literally all talk!

---

Visa is already seriously talking about withdrawing sponsorship - if they go, I can see Coca Cola and maybe Hyundai following, which would be a serious crippling of their finances. As much as it would be appropriate, I don't see the sports related sponsors (Nike, Adidas, etc) pulling out, though. Not unless there's a wholesale defection. As for the countries voting against Blatter, I've yet to find a definitive list - and what I have found is primarily European countries, the US, Canada, Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica and Uruguay - hardly comprehensive, even for the 73 number being used, but pretty indicative of countries that FIFA/Blatter hasn't been able to buy off. And the corruption charges don't even begin to address the slave labor being used in Qatar to build the new stadiums, and the 1400+ deaths and counting of the laborers doing the building.

The real truth is, the only people that can make a real difference are the consumers, and if history is any indicator, they'll grumble and gripe, and then make sure they watch from start to finish.

South Africa admits FIFA $10m payment:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-32952078

Ex-Fifa vice president Jack Warner swallows Onion spoof

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...ws-onion-spoof

Utterly amazing!

This is the Daily Fail so I'm slightly reticent to post it, however, they're apparently citing the German paper Die Zeit- but my GCSE German is way past rusty. So with trepidation I'll link to both articles covering the rather amazing news (if true) that Germany allegedly supplied RPG's to Saudi Arabia (along with lots of other cash bribes) in order to win the 2006 World Cup.

Arms dealing?

Really?

If this is true....good grief.

FIFA - Finance Instead of Football - Always



EDIT:

A few other minor sports news sites are picking it up:

The 42
"The paper say that the government, led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroder sent the shipment of weapons to the Saudis a week before the vote, which Germany won to host the tournament.

They beat South Africa 12-11 after the New Zealand member of FIFA’s Executive Committee abstained from voting, after it had been expected he would back the South African bid.

And with just one vote in the difference, Die Zeit say the RPGs swung the decisive vote in favour of the Germans.
They also claim that many other German businesses promised investment in countries to secure their votes in the ballot.
Car manufacturer Volkswagon and pharmaceutical company Bayer reportedly promised extra investment in Thailand and South Korea, while Daimler invested €100m in Korean car brand Hyundai, who have been an official partner of FIFA since the 2002 World Cup."

Interesting, before Blatter threw the towel in (keep in mind he has not actually gone).

Quote:

---

Fifa: Head of German FA opposes World Cup 2018 boycott

---

That makes sense now.

The French, Italians and Spanish voted for Blatter at the election, not sure about Germany. The only hope for the FA to oppose his election was for the Germans join them in organizing a combined UEFA boycott.

Jeese, if the he had this on the Germans (not the most colourful of nations) then I dread to think what our Latin brethren have been up to.:clapping:

Not heard anything further on the RPG allegations so maybe there was nothing to them, or maybe it's perfectly legal and so there's no issue.

This one from the BBC, though, is DISGUSTING. FIFA and the Korean FA donated money to a Haiti earthquake relief fund. Apparently, FIFA official Warner may have taken $750,000 of that money for 'personal use'!

Can/should FIFA be allowed to continue to exist? How corrupt does something have to be before you decide it's rotten and has to be brought down entirely, and something new built in its place?

Haiti, unfortunately, seemed to be the ultimate natural disaster location to encourage mass corruption. Just Google Red Cross Haiti Scandal for dozens of links across multiple political spectra. The world population would have made better use of the billions of dollars/pounds/Euros/etc if it had been used as toilet paper. For that matter, Haiti would have been better off if people would have just donated toilet paper...

While I guess it's kind of small change, I'm surprised there's not been any mention here of the Ireland payoff by FIFA. Or is that different from everything else? (serious question)

The Ireland pay-off I found to be more of a laugh than something that got my back up. At the end of the day, I don't believe that the officials were paid to help France beat Ireland (the entire premise of that seems quite a joke) and the payment was just to keep any litigation that Ireland would start to a minimum.

It does make me wonder if England ever got a pay-out after the hand-of-coke-head-cheater incident in 86 though.....

The most worrying thing about this entire debacle for me is that once it became public knowledge (rather than speculation) that there was indeed corruption in FIFA, everyone and their dog decided to chip in. Why did they all stay quiet for so long? So many countries have helped to keep a lid on things and allowed the corruption to fester.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shaithis

The most worrying thing about this entire debacle for me is that once it became public knowledge (rather than speculation) that there was indeed corruption in FIFA, everyone and their dog decided to chip in. Why did they all stay quiet for so long? So many countries have helped to keep a lid on things and allowed the corruption to fester.

---

Because the exact same culture exists in the IOC, except multiplied exponentially - and when that lid finally gets blown off, actual governments may fall. It was good for both organizations when it was all hush hush, and it's sort of good for the IOC now, because attention has been temporarily diverted, but when things are finally done with FIFA, people are going to take a serious look elsewhere, and they are not going to like what they see - especially when it's been right in front of them for decades.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GuidoLS

Visa is already seriously talking about withdrawing sponsorship - if they go, I can see Coca Cola and maybe Hyundai following, which would be a serious crippling of their finances. As much as it would be appropriate, I don't see the sports related sponsors (Nike, Adidas, etc) pulling out, though. Not unless there's a wholesale defection. As for the countries voting against Blatter, I've yet to find a definitive list - and what I have found is primarily European countries, the US, Canada, Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica and Uruguay - hardly comprehensive, even for the 73 number being used, but pretty indicative of countries that FIFA/Blatter hasn't been able to buy off. And the corruption charges don't even begin to address the slave labor being used in Qatar to build the new stadiums, and the 1400+ deaths and counting of the laborers doing the building.

The real truth is, the only people that can make a real difference are the consumers, and if history is any indicator, they'll grumble and gripe, and then make sure they watch from start to finish.

---

I have a more cynical view of sports-related sponsors .... they'll drop FIFA like a nuclear-hot potato if and only if the bad publicity looks to be doing them more harm than good. That is, if they start getting kicked in their tender bits .... their bottom line.

Also, at the moment, a very large part of the "bad" news is suspicion, allegation and not a little inference. There have been some convictions, but on the scale of the now-alleged corruption, fairly small beer.

My personal view is that many, or most of the allegations will eventually be upheld, and justified by actual convictions. Eventually. Especially if, as appears to be the case, some of, if you'll excuse the mangled mixed metaphors, rats currently deserting the sinking ship have their feet held to the fire, and 'flip' on FIFA and pony up hard evidence.

I also wouldn't be surprised if what we've seen so far turns out to be the tip of a very dirty iceberg, and I strongly suspect that, as prosecutors generally only allege what they think available evidence supports, what eventually becomes public is only the tip of an even dirtier iceberg of what happened, but can't be stood up with evidence.

I think FIFA should be disbanded and a new world football body formed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33107591

The phrase "rotten to the core" springs to mind.

Anyone seen the trailer for United Passions, its based on blatter/FIFA and bombed at the box office.

https://youtu.be/kDz4ywq2zxs

Sepp Blatter gets showered with dollar bills at the FIFA press conference:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33591332

I'm not usually a fan of Lee Nelson, but he hit the nail on the head here!