ESPNFC.com has confirmed that multiple FIFA officials have been arrested early Wednesday morning in Zurich by Swiss police, where they will be extradited to the United States to face federal corruption charges.
The charges allege that there has been widespread corruption throughout football’s governing body over the past 20 years, involving bids for World Cups as well as marketing and broadcast deals. More than 10 officials, including vice presidents Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo and former executive committee member Jack Warner, face charges of wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering, according to the Times.
Football fans around the world have stood on the sidelines for years, questioning how their “beautiful game” has been run by one of the most powerful organizations in the world: FIFA.
Most recently, the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were awarded to Russia and Qatar, respectively, under much scrutiny that the bids were bought by the highest bidder with FIFA executives pocketing the cash.
Will this be a step in the right direction or is Sepp Blatter and his team bigger than the game?
Fuck FIFA and fuck Ziva Istina
And for those of you who think this changes anything with “za dom…..spremni” and Suspension Joey, it doesn’t.
The people in trouble are not the ones who ruled on that topic. You could change the entire structure of FIFA, their views on “za dom…spremni” wont change. That narrative is controlled by the liberal media and nothing will chnage that.
It’s how the U.S. government took down Al Capone.
They’re doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
You really have to laugh aloud when you hear that the Justice Department is investigating tournaments from the 80s to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and have already identified that the U.S World Cup in 1994 was won fairly. Basically everything else is under investigation beside that one tournament.
Does this mean Za Dom Spremni stays?
hahaha
man.. FIFA saying it’s a bad day for football
what horseshit, for every actual fan of the game it’s a fantastic day ! Only bad thing is Blatter didnt get nabbed himself. Fuck i can’t stand that cuntrash.
Btw – QUEEEEEENNNSLAND !! (^__^)
Make no mistake – other countries will follow suit – and each will have their own angle.
More than one country will have enough to get Blatter, if not eventually, the US. it is almost certain that he broke laws in more than one.
They used US banking to move their money around, thats why the Feds went after them. There will no doubt be other countries to follow, England for one will pursue this vigorously as they were after the 2018 bid awarded to Russia.
The US is leading this, so US laws apply here. If Sepp didn’t break any US laws, not much the FBI and DOJ can do to him. That is why the other clowns were taken in, they broke US laws.
@ Croatia vs. Antwerp – You are correct.
They are going to offer reduced charges/sentences to the guys they just arrested for their testimony about other larger corruption matters – including Russia, Qatar and taking down Blatter.
Let the singing begin.
NICE !!!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCMQqQIoADAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fforward.com%2Fopinion%2Fisrael%2F308987%2Fhow-fifa-soccer-scandal-could-help-israel%2F&ei=BW5mVeGfE8rLsAXczoGABg&usg=AFQjCNGWWqFbtTqtlbFRuRrlreY3XmE9VA
http://stopwar.org.uk/news/fifa-vote-to-kick-israel-out-of-world-football-conveniently-blocked-by-us-intervention
But is it good for the Jooz?
But is it good for the Jooz?
http://www.timesofisrael.com/fifa-corruption-scandal-may-prove-fortuitous-for-israel/
The FEDs haven’t let the cat outta the bag just yet….they said this is only the beginning….
They’re prolly still gathering evidence on Qatar and that prick Blatter, lulling them into a false sense of security. Once they get all the dirt, they’re gonna take’em by surprise and arrest’em.
I think a lot of things are being looked over here, and unless Sepp goes and Qatar loses it’s bid, I think this is one big dog and pony show.
1. Last week, 2 of Sepp’s major contenders stepped down from running their campaign to become president stating that the election was going to be rigged. Ask yourself why someone would step down so close to the election. They wasted an entire year + money in trying to become the next prez. Why drop out so close to election days…and a week before the arrests?
2. One of the men that was arrested this morning was supposed to be Sepp’s successor.
3. This investigation goes over the past 20 years of FIFA, but doesn’t get into anything with Qatar.
I think it’s great that things are getting cleaned up, and I hope for the best. I think we need to be rational in these times, and not expect everything to fall into place. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sepp was reelected, if Qatar holds onto the WC venue, and if Sepp faces minimal to no charges when all is said and done.
Better Sepp then some Arab Prince. Then we are really screwed.
But is it good for the Jooz?
http://forward.com/opinion/israel/308987/how-fifa-soccer-scandal-could-help-israel/
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/tense-talks-israel-expulsion-vote-fifa-111635874–sow.html
http://www.timesofisrael.com/fifa-corruption-scandal-may-prove-fortuitous-for-israel/
@moj split……………that is a different conversation. I’ve spent enough time documenting the idiocy of jadan, mali i nemocan hajduk’s leadership over the years.
The conversation about Mamic and Pupet Suker has nothing to do with jadan, mali i nemocan hajduk’s own problems.
Nothing will change with FIFA until the people at the lower levels who elect the FIFA leadership are gone as well.
The big corporations who spend adversting and sponsorship dollars with FIFA need to say something, then the clean federations ned to do something. Would love to see a big country or a few star players say they wont play in the World Cup or Confederations Cup; that would send a message. But, the odds of that are minimal. Better chance of Kranjcar not breaking up a marriage or eating healthy.
cue the
“but Davor Suker was a legendary player! why would you want to remove him!!”
comments
oh yeah here we go again accusations about the sranje with mamic and suker,
biggest sranje is hajduk and what managment has done with all those millions but not a peep from any on here, incredible
Kalinic scores for Dnipro
It starts from the top. If lower level guys (Mamic, Suker, etc.) see what FIFA and CONCAF get away with, they will follow. FIFA needs a full house cleaning and a complete overhaul. Best option would be to disband it entirely and start fresh with a new organization. These indictments might just finally be the trigger point for change.
I sure hope Suker’s anal sphincter tightened up a bit this morning.
nothing……The people who keep people like Blatter in power, need to be removed. That means the executive committee and also the heads of the soccer federations across the world.
The sport is dirty at every level. Look at Cro with Mamic and Puppet SUker. Same sranje.
Let’s say Blatter is out (highly unlikely). Who would be his replacement? Do any of you know anything about the Jordanian prince?
Aganist Modern Football!!
@Sepp
Agreed!
“Today we are issuing FIFA a red card.”
BOOM!
Good observations, Lenny Bruce. The personal attacks on some of the characters were a bit much. And he pretty much attacks anyone associated with FIFA, rightly or wrongly. He was very harsh on Michael Garcia, the former US prosecutor. He even managed to bad mouth Mitt Romney. But taken with a grain of salt, it was a good read (and a quick read).
I cant wait to hear from Blatter on Friday and he how ducks from this.
“For The Game. For The World.”
Andrew Jennings once wrote a very interesting book about FIFA called Foul! – That was about 8 years ago. Since then, Jennings’ journalism has deteriorated severely, from his Panorama TV shows where he ran around shouting across car parks like a crazy man, to this rather childishly written book. Jennings has become far too close and personal to the subject matter, meaning he is no longer able to cover it in an intelligent and measured manner.
He has effectively become the journalistic version of the Claire Danes character, Carrie, in the Homeland TV series. His heart might be in the right place, and more often than not he’s probably on to something, but his now frantic, slightly crazy, and far too personal approach means that you can’t take him seriously enough.
Moving away from the author and to this book specifically, there are some very interesting parts, and he’s dug up a lot of rather embarrassing and shocking details on the various men involved at the top of FIFA and the IOC, as he has done throughout his career. Unfortunately though, you have to wade through paragraphs of juvenile insults, nicknames and plain nonsense. Constantly referring to Chuck Blazer as “The Belly” for example. Far too much time is spent covering utterly irrelevant information and bits of gossip. I found myself actually getting irritated by some of what I had to read.
In many respects Jennings is a very good investigative journalist. He has a canny knack for getting his hands on secret documents, and most of his success has been on the basis of this. On the other hand, in this book there’s too much weight given to the “this guy told me this once” kind of source. The occasional little anecdote is fine, but they’re effectively irrelevant, and they come up rather too often, in particular in relation to already irrelevant bits of gossip.
On top of that the standard of writing is surprisingly low, which in addition to the above means that you would be forgiven for thinking that you were reading a print out from an amateur blogger. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if Jennings had lifted some of the chapters straight from his blog.
All in all, it’s ok, but I would expect better from an experienced journalist.
If you haven’t already, the must read on FIFA is Andrew Jennings’ book “Omertà: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family.” Jennings is an investigative reporter and he does a fantastic job outlining in detail the various shenanigan’s the FIFA guys were up to. All of the guys indicted are covered in the book.
Of course and there is more corruption like how Croatia was screwed in the Euro againist Spain and the WC againist Brazil. No way these dogs let either one of this money making countries lose to poor Croatia. I think a death sentance would be just.
This is all Mamić’s doing.
Now that the FIFA officials out of the picture, he can instill Šuker in their place. It’s all going according to plan.
😉
Maminjo must be a match fixer…”Too bad they were in Switzerland”? Fantastic they were there. It’s about time a few ended up behind bars.
Nope, EU would’ve hand them over immediately. What’s surprising is that the Swiss are cooperating and also investigating.
The Fix Is In as I have been saying for years.
Now you see that European Football is like Queen Cersi from the Game of Thrones, beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside. It appears that the FBI is playing the role of the High Sparrow, trying to clean things up a bit. More to come I am sure.
EU countries probably would’ve protected them.
Too bad they were in Switzerland
More to follow on this……stay tuned