Wednesday, May 27, 2015

FIFA Inquiry Yields Indictments

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-arrested-on-corruption-charges-blatter-isnt-among-them.html?ref=world&_r=0

As one of the most watched events around the world, it's safe to say the FIFA World Cup generates millions of viewers (and billions of dollars) around the globe each year. Discoveries about the 2010 World Cup, which was held in South Africa have lead to investigations that have yielded facts that South Africa was chosen due to high officials being bribed for their votes on where it should be held. The arrests of the officials involved did not come as a huge surprise, as the FIFA organization has been bombarded with accusations of bribery for decades. Like the Olympics, hosting a huge event such as this can bring great economic growth to a country: tourism, infrastructure building, and creating jobs for their people. Clearly the voting process ought to be more tightly regulated. How do you guys think they should go about having a clean vote? Who is supposed to make sure the officials stay on track?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It is safe to say that FIFA is an organization riddled with corruption and scandal. However, it's also true that FIFA controls one of the most beloved competitions in history. This means that changing FIFA, an international force with the power to lobby governments, is not going to be easy. If I could control FIFA I would change the voting system so that every country that takes part in its festivities (including all of the sectional and qualifying competitions not just the world cup) should have one vote. My hope is that lobbying governments will be much harder than lobbying a corrupt committee, and that the countries governments will take polls and votes of their citizen's opinions in to account while making decisions. This was not the case in the most recent world cup in Brazil, where many Brazilians had their homes demolished to make room for stadiums and suffered the weight of increased taxes with little to no profit coming their way.

Unknown said...

Fun fact: The Olympics are not a guaranteed bonus for the host countries economy. In fact, it could well be negative.

FIFA, on the other hand, has shown serious corruption across the board. Bribery is rampant and that directly detracts from the games as matches are fixed or even thrown. The fact that Quatar got rights to 2022 should be evidence enough. It has none of the infrastructure needed. While building their stadiums, there have been numerous deaths and the work is described as slave labor. Even the basic weather conditions reject the sport as summers can hit 120(oF). It really is a shame that the main body has been able to be corrupt for so long because the sport of soccer is a beautiful game.