By RYAN TOLMICH
Despite stating earlier that the organization is free of corruption, FIFA is reportedly set to come under heavy fire from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
CNN is reporting that the FBI is set to intensify investigations of corruption claims against FIFA’s senior members despite Thursday’s announcement from the organization that cleared itself of any wrongdoing.
The FBI, which has been investigating FIFA for three years, will continue its investigations in the face of the reports, which could result in charges against some of the organization’s leadership. Investigators will now seek access to FIFA’s report, commissioned by former U.S. prosecutor Michael Garcia, which has not been made available to the public.
Garcia, whose report centered around corruption claims surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, spoke out against FIFA’s statement Thursday while distancing himself from the ethics committee.
“Today’s decision by the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed in the Investigatory Chamber’s report,” Garcia said. “I intend to appeal this decision to the FIFA Appeal Committee.”
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What do you think of the potential investigation? How do you see the FBI’s investigation playing out?
Share your thoughts below.
The FBI only has jurisdiction in the US.
Mail fraud is a Federal offense punishable with a fine of $10K and up to 2 yrs in jail for each instance.
If snail mail relating to FIFA’s WC bidding process was sent from FIFA’s headquarters to the USSF’s offices in Chicago and handled in any shape, way or form by the USPS between 2008-2010 then a federal crime was committed. FIFA’s bid process was rigged all the way, everything else was just a dog and pony show.
I’m sure similar internet, online, ecommerce laws exist. Email communications between Brussels and US Soccer Federation relating to WC bidding process would constitute fraud as well.
Nothing wrong with your facts. And if you are pointing out a theoretical tactic, then I agree that this might be an angle we could use to demonstrate the wrong that was committed.
But you know what else is a dog and pony show? The US attempting to pull the plug on a Russia or Qatar World Cup using our domestic mail fraud and e-commerce statutes. We can bust Al Capone for tax evasion in our own home and that’s our business, but nobody in the international community is going to buy this tactic given the political sentiments about those two countries and the tensions that are expressed daily. Wars have been started for less… all it usually takes is a pretense and a threatened boycott of a World Cup might very well qualify
It seems this may become less of a USSF issue if this is true…. Gulati has been smart to be silent, but I also think he knows he has spent all of his bullets re winning the 2022 WC and now is not a good time to be throwing grenades. By contrast, the FBI probably doesn’t care a whole lot about a World Cup which may or may not be profitable, and for which theyor the current administration would get zero credit anyway. But information like this could have value down the road, and we all know what happened.
It sounds like someone had been watching replays of The Firm on TNT. The Fifa office is in Switzerland, not Belgium.
my bad… switzerland it is… that was the Firm on netflix…
My theory about this is that everybody took the money to vote for Qatar never thinking that Qatar would actually win. When it did, the whole thing went to pot.
That cupcake makes a mess and we got a case again.
This has nothing to do with corruption. We’re playing FIFA’s own game so we can host a future WC.
Well that should shed some light to the fog of corruption with those at fifa. One thing is for sure, when it comes to sports investigation and things related, somehow US investigators get to the bottom of things. MLB substance abuse things. hopefully it brings about change.
There is really only one thing to do at this point. Let justice do its job, but US soccer needs to do its job and put in the best performance at these next two world cup. We shouldn’t be looking to win a World Cup many, many years from now. We should be looking to win it now.
The fact that we have a legitimate democracy with checks and balances and independent judiciary as well as accountability is one of the main reasons the U.S. did not get the World Cup. These guys aren’t going to set themselves up to be indicted.
lol id like to see what defines a legitamite democracy these days
just because you dont see corruption doesnt mean it doesnt exist here as well. we’re just incredibly talented at hiding it by deflecting attention to it.
hey look kim kardashians butt
Who gives a cr*p? Its a group that organizes soccer tournaments. Do I care if these countries are spending money bribing FIFA or buying themselves more toys? No. Everyone knows it is a joke, so what does it change?
I must say, this has to be one of the most pessimistic view of corruption I’ve ever seen.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure this is the logic you laid out:
1. corruption is happening
2. other people are loosing out by corruption (I’d argue we all are loosing out, but that’s another post entirely)
3. everyone knows corruption is happening
4. why care about corruption?
Well, that bought sums it up 🙁
You are the new worst poster on this site.
Hyperbole.
Del Griffin is nowhere near the list of valedictorian’s for class dunce of SBI.
To be fair though, he is close.
Are you that shower curtain ring fella?
I was pretty mad when they awarded the WCs to Russia and Qatar 4 years ago but honestly we really shouldn’t be. Sure they are corrupt, but let those countries waste billions of dollars on infrastructure they are going to use only once and the watch it deteriorate (i.e. Greece 2004, Beijing 2008, South Africa 2010… the list goes on).
I mean look at the bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics, only Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing are left. Stockholm, Oslo, Lviv, and Krakow all pulled out. The smarter (developed) nations no longer buy the “this will boost the economy” gag for events like this, Soccernomics has a whole chapter on this. While the sucker (developing) nations will always want to prove themselves to the rest of the world by staging a grandiose event like the World Cup or Olympics. Those are the nation’s FIFA and the IOC will leach off of.
We could host this tomorrow. We don’t need to build anything – there are dozens of 100 stadiums capable of hosting matches. Instead of taking watching other countries waste money, I’d rather have the world cup here.
I’m not sure I want to play in Russia anyway, and I’m durn sure I don’t want the USA participating in a tournament in Qatar.
Russia is a mafia state that doesn’t even pretend to have an ideology anymore. Putin is a straight-up thug who’s getting increasingly militarily aggressive and since 2011 is spending huge amounts of money to re-arm Russia, and incidents involving NATO/US forces and Russian forces have escalated back to pre-war levels. And they don’t even pretend to share Western ideals on human rights. They had a laser-generated picture of Obama eating a banana on a billboard in Moscow, their attitude towards tolerating homosexuality is Middle Age, and their fan behavior is worse than you see in South America, which is no small feat. And we’re going to go play a World Cup in that and hope we’re treated well and fairly? I can’t even imagine how aggressive Putin might be in four years, considering how he’s been escalating lately.
As for Qatar. No. A thousand times no. Not only is it unsafe for athletes and horrible for fans, not only did they flat-out buy the Cup to begin with…I don’t care to see 8,000 foreign slave-workers die just to play in the stadiums they built so some oil sheikh can showcase how civilized his nation is. FIFA seems fine with it. I’m not.
Personally, I hope the USSF, English FA, Australia, and anybody else who wants out just drops out of FIFA and forms their own governing body. We’d get half the world, and then let FIFA keep on doing business as usual until the new governing body owns the other half.
No point in continuing this farce and hope FIFA reforms or does the right thing. Time to move along.
Stage 2018 in England, 2022 in USA, 2026 in Australia or Japan/Korea. Problem solved.
What do we care what other countries “waste” their money on? We waste way more than that on weapons in a single year.
Wanting to hold every World Cup in a single location it’s a pretty ignorant proposition. Did you see the 30,000 Chileans rooting for their team in Brazil? How about the 25,00 Uruguayans that showed up?
This is not the Super Bowl or the he NBA where only the rich have access to the game. Holding the WC in different parts of the world is what makes it the one and only truly democratic world championship. Even if it clashes with your American exceptionalism.
I will defend slowleftarm here. I don’t think that he has suggested that the WC should be only held in the US. The issue is that Qatar’s bid was inferior to every single bid for 2022 WC, but they somehow won the hosting rights. The WC should absolutely be held in different countries, but not based on their ability to bribe.
Of course I didn’t suggest every world cup should be here but we bid for 2022 and I think it should be here and not Qatar. If you want to have it in Australia or Japan instead, that’s fine too.
I was responding to the comment by wansteiger that’s it better to let other countries host and waste money. I don’t think we would have to spend much money to host a world cup because our infrastructure is capable of hosting it now and we have more than enough stadiums already.
Of course the world cup should be held in many different places all over the world. But Qatar should not be one of those places.
“Bell” is apparently looking so hard for something to be angry about that he is defending Qatar hosting the world cup because the world cup doesn’t just belong to the rich. Wow.
I understood slowleftarm’s first reply to my initial post (I would have replied earlier, but the mobile site doesn’t allow for replies). I say all the time that “We could host the World Cup tomorrow” thing when arguing with people about Olympics and World Cup. World Cup is a country thing which is different from the olympics which is a city thing and I should have specified.
I was initially mad (being from Chicago) that we lost 2016 Olympics to Rio, but since then I have become so adamant against the public funding of sports staida (thank you Miami Marlins) that I am not mad anymore as it would have taken so much money for some pointless onetime event.
I mean if we only allow countries that have the infrastructure to host the World Cup who would that be? USA, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, France, Mexico for sure. Australia? Japan/Korea again? I don’t know.
South Africa probably shouldn’t have done it, most of those stadiums aren’t being used anymore if I recall correctly from something I saw on ESPN this summer.
No one is saying we should only allow countries that already have the infrastructure to host the world cup. It is pointless to respond to arguments no one is making.
I’m implying that slowleftarm
And since you are so concerned about the poor having access to the WC, Qatar has repeatedly ranked as the richest country in the world (according to per capita income) with approximately 14% of its citizens being millionaires.
You are truly delusional if you think that the truly downtrodden of this world can afford international travel, lodging accomodations, tickets to a massive sporting event, food, merchandise, etc., everything that it requires to get to events like the World Cup or the Olympics and enjoy them. And the massive infrastructure and stadium construction projects that occur every time one of these events is held? Rich people getting richer.
Sure they are corrupt, but let those countries waste billions of dollars on infrastructure they are going to use only once and the watch it deteriorate (i.e. Greece 2004, Beijing 2008, South Africa 2010… the list goes on).
While we’re talking about economics and foreign economies, observing the implosion of said foreign infrastructure isn’t exactly good for anyone. Especially when acknowledging the role our country takes and how connected the world economy is.
“Smarter (developed)” nations will eventually foot the bill directly or indirectly.
I also read Soccernomics. Everybody should.
But you’ve left a couple of pieces out and changed the argument a bit, in my view.
1) The USA might be the only country who could say this, but we could very well turn a profit given our minimal new infrastructure requirements and the record attendance in 1994.
However, the profit (or loss) would almost certanly not be a game changing amount in an economy as large as ours
2) While promises of economics benefits are of course contrived, the authors also point out that there are credible statistical cases to be made for hosting a World Cup because it actually improves the happiness of the host country, much more materially than other such difficult-to-quantify expenditures. Isn’t this this best thing a government can do?
Some countries should never bid. They just can’t justify it. But there are plenty of countries who could do so, knowing that it was likely an unprofitable choice fnancially, and not have any reason to feel like a “sucker”
I welcome any further investigation into FIFA, especially in light of the maddening announcements made today – but what jurisdiction does the FBI have, or leverage for that matter. If it was Interpol, I could see that, since FIFA is in Switzerland, but I’d love for someone to fill in the blanks for me.
It is a very good question re jurisdiction. We don’t know at this point. It is possible that some of the funds were exchanged here in the United States or that some money laundering took place in the United States.
The FBI may want to expose FIFA as corrupt.
Regarding jurisdiction: i believe the US has claimed jurisdiction over any bank transactions denominated in dollars anywhere in the world. It had to do with the federal system for clearing funds or something. Theoretically, the US could bring charges against FIFA people such as Blatter and arrest them after they get off the plane next time they visit the US. Or they could accuse FIFA of racketeering, seize bank accounts, prevent them from doing business in the US, etc. Unfortunately, the backlash from FIFA may be worse than any benefits gained.
If Blatter et al. are convicted of claims like money laundering, etc., why wouldn’t European nations just extradite them to the U.S.? The U.S. has already gotten Swiss banks to snitch on tax evaders, so why wouldn’t the powers that be in Europe be even more willing to hand over corrupt officials that they privately loathe? I would bet that if David Cameron had Blatter arrested and sent off to the U.S. in handcuffs, even Labour supporters would consider him a hero.
I’d love for FIFA, Blatter, and all of the other crooks to be found guilty of money laundering and other crimes, be extradited to the US, and have the 2022 World Cup reassigned to the US.
But.. I can’t imagine them being extradited. No one will even stand up and nominate a candidate to run against Blatter.
FIFA’s internal political failings don’t have any bearing on state law enforcement capabilities….
Trying to extract an elderly Swiss man and bring him to a prison sentence for crimes like mail fraud and mishandled auctions is just not realistic or worth the effort. He’s a wealthy, cunning, connected guy who has powerful friends of is own…. that could be an expensive war even if we get the result we want, which is no sure thing.
Forcing him out is no easy task either but probably this is the best we should hope for,.
I’d have to concur that this is much more likely to be politics and not a process with a legal end-game. It would be a total quagmire involving the imprisonment of a bunch of old people, conducted by a group of people who (let’s face it) are probably no strangers to the odd bribe themselves.
However, where this does have some potential value is in the event of a US decision to boycott (or publically suggest a boycott) either Russia 2018 or Qatar 2022 should current tensions escalate (it’s speculation and would of course be the decision of a new administration, but nobody should rule this out). Boycotting without sufficient evidence of having been “wronged” in this situation would look like a bad-faith act of aggression — spoiling one of the planet’s few mutually enjoyed events for indirect motives,. This information is a valuable chip in potentially justifying a boycott on economic harm and a polluted process that could jeopardize the events themselves… something that most people can understand independent of cultural differences.
if the NSA is an example the world is the FBI’s oyster as well
to me this is a power play what country or countries wouldnt want to control one of the richest organizations on the planet.
Foreign corrupt practices act is a good place to start. FIFA has operations and likely accounts with US banks. You may not be able to jail them but you can convict and fine FIFA as a whole. You want the organization punished(and changed). Any people jailed is a bonus.
There is also this “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Bribery_Act_of_1998”
There are options.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act only applies to corruption of government officials. I doubt anyone bribed by Qatar, Russia, or FIFA is a government official.
The law was designed to stop bribery of politicians for special favors such as contracts.
Well it also says party members or candidates which I feel is a bit more vague. And we dont know who bribed who and when. That is what the FBI is for.
Im pretty sure it also has a sister law that covers other bribery issues. The travel act? Eh im not a lawyer. It may not apply to Blatter but FIFA does business in the US.
Mail fraud is a Federal offense punishable with a fine of $10K and up to 2 yrs in jail for each instance.
If snail mail relating to FIFA’s WC bidding process was sent from FIFA’s headquarters to the USSF’s offices in Chicago and handled in any shape, way or form by the USPS between 2008-2010 then a federal crime was committed. FIFA’s bid process was rigged all the way, everything else was just a dog and pony show.
I’m sure similar internet, online, ecommerce laws exist. Email communications between Brussels and US Soccer Federation relating to WC bidding process would constitute fraud as well.
I agree. I don’t know that they have any jurisdiction at all, but if they uncover information that clearly presents a systematic mechanism of corruption then it could lead to a big shake up at FIFA.
And that shake up might be rather positive for futbol in general.
I am simply dying to know where Gulati fits in…. is he pushing this in any way?
Gulati has been managing this siutation masterfully since the WC decisions were announced. He has Blatter in a very uncomfortable place and has given him zilch in return, other than to deny Blatter’s claims that the US offered to step in and host when Qatar finally implodes fatally. He got Blatter to sign off on the Copa America without outwardly conceding anything, which effectively creates an alternative to FIFA for organizing int’l tournaments, as much of the work was done without FIFA’s knowledge or consent.
I love Gulati, but I really have no idea what he really wants to do here. I think being a lead (perhaps even head) in the restructuring of FIFA has something appeal to him and would complete a remarkable career (which would be remarkable if he never got involved in soccer at all) But he plays his cards very close to the vest and limits his direct attacks and disclosures — hard to say what he sees as the strategy and I’m sure it drives Blatter nuts.
Smart, smart dude. We are lucky to have him.
Problem is, like you, I’m not sure what he’s up to.
It was nice, for instance, the way he handled the Donovan-Klinsmann thing. He got Donovan his send-off game, somehow managed to make the two make nice and share a hug on the sidelines. Could have gone very different but it looked like Klinsmann was perfectly willing to give Donovan his moment – for all the invective, I never thought spite was his real motive for cutting Donovan – and LD clearly had his instructions if he wanted his send-off. Effectively put some stitches in what had been a gaping wound in American soccer.
The thing is, Gulati’s being real quiet and circumspect…in a situation that might actually call for some fire and brimstone.
FIFA is utterly out of control, and as this latest incident showed, they’re not even pretending they’re accountable to anybody. At some point you’ve got to stand up publicly and say “STOP!”, and here’s Gulati’s being quiet and measured…he’d better just be picking his moment to put the knife between their ribs, or I’m going to be mighty peeved.
The FBI has jurisdiction the moment a single FIFA dollar goes through the US Banking System.
Or of they use US currency I think.These law suits are crazy complex though. Didnt Barclays pay out a huge amout to the SEC recently? Billions if I remember correctly.
Their jurisdiction only extends to their US activities (which are significant and likely include signifcant porttions of EA Sports licensings, etc). So we could try something like a Cold War with FIFA — a risky ploy. But not entirely absurd– it’s a war we might even win if the Copa America is a raging success. FIFA’s biggest strength is its monopoly on organizing international events and related interactions. Once people see that it can be done just as well (perhaps even better) without them, it’s possible that you could have the necessary ingredients for a legitimate competitor/replacement.
Sooner or later, this has to involve Blatter’s resignation or death. An old Swiss man with his connections (and the dirt I’m sure he has on others) is absolutely never going to an American jail. He’ll drag this on forever, as he has already done.
It would be a highly unpopular suggestion in some quarters, but FIFA would be better off being domiciled in the US. The simple reason is we have the very best courts for enforcing the sort of oversight that has been lacking here. Switzerland has given us nothing except for Gruyere cheese and a place for Jason Bourne to stash his stuff.
This “could” get interesting. Just spit-balling here.
I might screw up the agencies names and roles..Yes, the FBI could be looking into money laundering…etc…stuff that happened on US soil. And based on what they find they could seek extradition or a conviction or investigation could keep lots of Excons off of US soil.
Lots of “coulds”.
However, maybe there’s another angle. More from the civil side. I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of how USSF interacts, if at all, with the US govt. Did we tax payers give any money to USSF? FBI investigates, finds wrong-doing and bid-rigging in the bid process, and the justice department brings a suit to recovery funds expended by the US and USSF in the bid process.