FIFA Corruption

[Dodgyknees]

Blatter is losing his **** mind.

 

He had one?

[StanBalaban]

Should a winter world cup go ahead, I think it will be very interesting to see what the TV networks (especially the US ones) do. The support for the PL on NBC has shown that the World Cup will be an event the networks would want, but not if it's going to clash with domestic sport such as the NBA, NFL and the hockey.

 

If there is doubt over the sponsors and the TV money, then FIFA would have a complete white elephant on their hands. 

[samjp26]

FIFA is no different to the Mafia. One of the funnier quotes:

 

He said Fifa needed to combat “anything that smacks of discrimination and racism”.

 

Villarreal were fined just £10,000 the other day for a fan throwing a banana at a player, this is still going on in this day and age yet isn't being stamped out. Focus on what is going on down in the stadiums Mr. Blatter. Utter tool.

Edited June 10, 2014 by samjp26

[AstonMartin82]

FIFA is no different to the Mafia. One of the funnier quotes:

 

He said Fifa needed to combat “anything that smacks of discrimination and racism”.

 

Villarreal were fined just £10,000 the other day for a fan throwing a banana at a player, this is still going on in this day and age yet isn't being stamped out. Focus on what is going on down in the stadiums Mr. Blatter. Utter tool.

 

Absolutely. Using FIFA's logic a rich owner spending their money on a football team is 4,900 times worse than racism.

 

(Man City £49m fine / Villarreal £10k fine)

[Swerbs]

 

FIFA is no different to the Mafia. One of the funnier quotes:

 

He said Fifa needed to combat “anything that smacks of discrimination and racism”.

 

Villarreal were fined just £10,000 the other day for a fan throwing a banana at a player, this is still going on in this day and age yet isn't being stamped out. Focus on what is going on down in the stadiums Mr. Blatter. Utter tool.

 

Absolutely. Using FIFA's logic a rich owner spending their money on a football team is 4,900 times worse than racism.

 

(Man City £49m fine / Villarreal £10k fine)

 

Is that not UEFA?

[villaajax]

 

Fifa president Sepp Blatter told he should stand down next year

 

Fifa president Sepp Blatter has been urged to stand down next year by European football chiefs because of the damage to Fifa's reputation from recent corruption allegations.

 

Dutch FA president Michael van Praag told Blatter, 78, he should not seek re-election in 2015.

 

FA chairman Greg Dyke said Blatter's claim that allegations were racially motivated was "totally unacceptable".

 

Fifa is investigating allegations around Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid.

 

Blatter met Uefa officials at the Fifa congress in Sao Paulo on Tuesday after winning support from the world governing body's five other confederations.

 

Dyke said he told Blatter: "The allegations being made are nothing to do with racism; they are allegations about corruption.

 

"These allegations need to be properly investigated and properly answered.

 

"Mr Blatter, many of us are deeply troubled by your reaction to these allegations.

 

"It's time for Fifa to stop attacking the messenger, and consider and understand the message."

 

England's Uefa vice-president David Gill also called for Blatter not to stand for a fifth term.

 

The former Manchester United chief executive said: "The very fact in 2011 he was clear it was just for four years, that should have been the situation. To change his mind is disappointing."

 

Asked whether he thought Blatter should step down next year, Gill added: "Personally, yes. I think we need to move on."

 

The Fifa president is said to have told delegates he still wished to stand in next year's election.

 

Uefa executive committee member Van Praag added: "Fifa's image has deteriorated because of everything that's happened in recent years.

 

"Few people still take Fifa seriously and, however you look at it, Blatter is mainly responsible.

 

"People link Fifa to corruption and bribery and all kinds of old boy's networks."

 

BBC Sport

Edited June 10, 2014 by villaajax

[AstonMartin82]

 

 

FIFA is no different to the Mafia. One of the funnier quotes:

 

He said Fifa needed to combat “anything that smacks of discrimination and racism”.

 

Villarreal were fined just £10,000 the other day for a fan throwing a banana at a player, this is still going on in this day and age yet isn't being stamped out. Focus on what is going on down in the stadiums Mr. Blatter. Utter tool.

 

Absolutely. Using FIFA's logic a rich owner spending their money on a football team is 4,900 times worse than racism.

 

(Man City £49m fine / Villarreal £10k fine)

 

Is that not UEFA?

 

 

UEFA is a confederation of FIFA so approved, signed and sealed by FIFA (I believe).

[AstonMartin82]

Platini is now, maybe slightly surprisingly, not supporting Blatter:

 

 

 

Michel Platini, one of football’s most powerful men, chose the opening day of the World Cup to publicly withdraw his support from Fifa president Sepp Blatter, declaring that the sport’s troubled governing body required a “breath of fresh air”.

Blatter is set to run for a fifth term as president despite the latest swirl of corruption allegations surrounding the organisation he has headed for 16 years.

But Platini, president of Uefa, is marshalling European federations against his former ally and yesterday was the first time he has spoken out against Blatter. The Frenchman will decide after the World Cup whether he will stand against Blatter in next year’s presidential election.

It leaves the football world deeply divided with Europe on one side and the rest of the game’s federations on the other, still in the Blatter camp on the evidence of this week’s Fifa Congress in Sao Paulo.

“I am supporting him no longer. I have known him for a long time, I like him, but I’m not favourable to him having another term,” said Platini in Sao Paulo. “I think Fifa needs a breath of fresh air. I share the European position. A new mandate for him would not be good for football.”

Blatter was re-elected unopposed in 2011 and promised it would be his last term, but his intention to stand again has become increasingly clear over the last couple of years.

He told congress this week that his “mission was not finished” and in return it voted against introducing age or term limits for the presidency.

During the congress Blatter condemned the British media as “racist” over investigations into corruption linked to Qatar. That angered several leading Uefa members, including England.

So far Jerome Champagne, a former Fifa executive, is the only declared candidate for the 2015 election but Blatter is certain to run and Platini will decide in August.

The delay allows Platini to assess any fallout from Michael Garcia’s report into the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar – delivered to Fifa after the World Cup – and the allegations of corruption that surround it. Platini voted for Qatar.

“It is an option,” said Platini when asked if he would run for Fifa president. “But it is not because of Blatter that Michel Platini would stand. And it is not because of Sepp Blatter that Michel Platini would not appear. My only concern is what I want to do.”

 

 

[Straggler]

Platini and Blatter are two sides of the same coin.  To me Platini looks every bit as corrupt around the Qatar fiasco, he will not be a breath of fresh air, it will be more like a gust of fetid air from a recently opened crypt. 

[TrentVilla]

Less fresh broom and more my turn is the way I see it.

[Zatman]

Platini and Blatter have fallen out for a while think it was over Qatar which Platini backed and Blatter didn't really care about and Platini is a coward and just blowing smoke. If he really thinks Blatter should go maybe he should grow balls and challenge him but he wont as he would be crushed n an electon

[Stevo985]

Referring to himself in the third person?

 

That, alone, is enough to tell you that he's no good.

[TrentVilla]

That and he is French.

[villaajax]

So grubby Beckenbauer has been banned for 90 days by FIFA for not complying with this inquest?

 

 

Franz Beckenbauer banned by Fifa for 90 days

Fifa has provisionally banned World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer from all footballing activities for 90 days for failing to co-operate with the Qatar 2022 corruption inquiry.

 

Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup with West Germany as a player and as a coach, had been asked to help with a Fifa ethics investigation.

 

The 68-year-old was part of the Fifa executive committee which voted to give the tournament to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.

 

He left Fifa's executive committee in 2011 but remained on their football committee.

 

More to follow

 

BBC Sport

[krisagg75]

snout in the trough,know it's not directly related but wasn't hoeness done for tax evasion

[TS]

I read an article in Private Eye about Garcia that heavily implied he's Blatter's stooge and has a past history of finding wrongdoing where his paymaster wants it to be found.

I can't find it online but its an interesting read. I can't say I'd be surprised a Fifa led investigation into Fifa might not be the most impartial.

[AstonMartin82]

I read an article in Private Eye about Garcia that heavily implied he's Blatter's stooge and has a past history of finding wrongdoing where his paymaster wants it to be found.

I can't find it online but its an interesting read. I can't say I'd be surprised a Fifa led investigation into Fifa might not be the most impartial.

 

This?

 

 

Massive bribes

Blatter hurriedly hired former New York US attorney Michael Garcia to investigate. Garcia will perhaps, some time, deliver a report into whether the crooks at Fifa trousered massive bribes to award the tournament to the Gulf billionaires. But why did Blatter choose Garcia as his well-rewarded “independent” investigator?

Asked about Garcia’s record as a Wall Street crime-buster and his closeness to the Bush White House, Columbia University law professor Scott Horton commented: “The one thing that could be predicted with utter confidence on the basis of Garcia’s professional career is that he would zealously protect whoever appointed him and paid his bills. He might actually go after corrupt figures, but only to the extent it served the agenda of the person who appointed him.”

 

Eat your heart out, Kim Jong-un

And so it has turned out. One of Garcia’s tasks has been to investigate allegations that Blatter handled a CHF1m bribe (£400,000 at the time) from a marketing company intended for the dodgy former Fifa president Joao Havelange. Blatter had to admit handling the money but said he had no idea it was a bribe. That’s what we are told Blatter said, because neither transcript nor electronic recording of Garcia’s no doubt rigorous interrogation of his paymaster will be made available.

Before hiring Garcia the serpentine Blatter rewrote Fifa’s laughable “ethics code” to ensure that evidence collected in Fifa investigations cannot be revealed. Eat your heart out, Kim Jong-un. Even the date and place of this performance are suppressed.

These are all questions that Greg Dyke could ask in Sao Paulo. Nobody in world football wants to go to sweltering, booze-free Qatar, stepping over the corpses of Nepalese slave labourers. It’s a tough one for slippery Sepp, because if Qatar is cancelled attention will turn to how the oligarchs acquired the 2018 World Cup for Russia. The Fifa lowlifes who “looked after” Qatar likely did the same for Russia. Post-Crimea, an open revote could give it to England, a strong contender in the 2010 vote. Go Greg, go!

 

 

Clicky

Edited June 14, 2014 by AstonMartin82

[TS]

Yep that's the one. Cheers.

[RunRickyRun]

Some more stuff about blatter and his chums in the latest issue (link)

 

 

STRANGE but true: every one of the World Cup’s 3m tickets comes via a modest two-storey office building on a business park in Cheadle Royal, south Manchester – some through the front door, others through the back door and into the black market.

The proprietors, Mexican brothers Jaime and Enrique Byrom, chums of disgraced bribe-taker and former Fifa president Joao Havelange, who have enjoyed exclusive World Cup ticket concessions for many years, are now guaranteed them for another decade under their latest deal with Sepp Blatter and his scrupulously honest executive committee. Whether the tournament is staged in Qatar, North America or Australia, the boys in Cheadle are certain winners.

 

 

Black market
Over the years the Byrom brothers have done some excellent business with the stupendously corrupt former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner from Trinidad. In 2006 they agreed to let him have more than 5,000 tickets to be resold into the rackets. They were caught by auditor Ernst & Young; but Fifa’s leaders cleared Warner, told his son and business partner Daryan (now a co-operating witness with the FBI) not to do it again, and tickled the Byrom wrists.

Unabashed by the 2006 scandal, four years later the brothers again agreed to supply Warner with tickets for him to resell into the black market. Blatter could not claim ignorance, since email correspondence with Warner was copied to Fifa and a company called Infront – a sports marketing outfit run by Blatter’s nephew Philippe, who gets big chunks of World Cup TV rights to resell. These are awarded by uncle Sepp and his Fifa colleagues.

A loan from Uncle Sepp

 

Meanwhile, the Byroms have granted Infront a 5 percent stake in their subsidiary company Match, which has 450,000 tickets to resell to corporate hospitality clients in VIP boxes. These include 32,000 for Brazil games and another 12,000 for the final.

Not much World Cup business eludes the brothers: Blatter also gives them the business of supplying accommodation to fans. Having lost $50m in South Africa in 2010 as fans stayed home, they have to make big profits in Brazil. Here again Uncle Sepp is helping.

Two years ago Blatter Snr gave the company jointly owned by the Byroms and his nephew a loan of £6,210,128 from Fifa “to fund the obligation for Match Services AG to provide accommodation services for the 2014 Fifa World Cup Brazil”. Better still, the loan is interest-free! Oddly, however, this sweetheart deal has still not been reported in Fifa’s accounts. Shome oversight, shurely?

 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

**** disgusting.

With Interpol on the FIFA payroll, our only real hope is that with a lot of the money changing hand here being US dollars, the FBI take an interest. I don't that even FIFA have enough money to buy them off.