FIFA
May 27, 2015
Can someone explain why the U.S. is wasting a single penny going after corruption in futbol? Nobody gives a fig about soccer in this country. Let the UK or Germans or someone go after these people.
Meanwhile, we should be prosecuting the financial and banking greedholes who crashed the world economy.
DrugMonkey 
May 27, 2015 at 11:32 pm
It makes zero obvious sense and I have been wondering about that too.
The other thing to consider is that the higher FIFA officials are almost as much part of the world’s oligarchical elite as the bankers, so a priori one would have never expected them to be touched.
One wild hypothesis is that this has something to do with Russia being host to the 2018 games. If they get stripped of the WC, then that would lend some support to it. But then Qatar is hot in 2022 and the Qataris are nominal allies.
It’s all really really strange…
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May 28, 2015 at 12:03 am
I thought it was due to the corruption involved with getting the Copa America to the US for 2016?
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May 28, 2015 at 12:18 am
Because they can. First off, the case landed in their laps: the #2 FIFA official in North America ended up in serious trouble with the IRS, and agreed to inform on other FIFA officials to avoid serious jail time. His cooperation, combined with the fact that many of FIFA’s dirty dealings were transacted through US banks, makes it a slam dunk.
Second, FIFA is a huge, notoriously dirty organization that nobody really likes. Imagine the NFL, but on an international scale, and run by the mafia. Many soccer fans hate FIFA, despite their love for the sport. Nobody will be crying over this.
And that’s especially true in the US — nobody here really cares about the sport or FIFA, and there are very few here whose power or livelihood depends on it. In fact, the US may be the /only/ country with both the resources and the political will to do it.
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May 28, 2015 at 12:25 am
^Ditto
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May 28, 2015 at 6:49 am
One word. Bread and Circuses. OK, that’s three words.
It’s certainly true that FIFA is corrupt and that kind of corruption is illegal. And so is most of the investment/banking industry. The difference is that FIFA is not too big to fail, so they can go after them. It’s like taking down Martha Stewart for insider trading. It’s not that she wasn’t guilty. It’s just that she was small potatoes compared to what else was/is out there.
It gets them a small (dump-journal) publication so that they can come back to the funding agency and say “we did so publish on topic X”, since actually getting the paper into a high-end journal (let alone really going after a GlamourMag) is nigh on impossible.
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May 28, 2015 at 9:30 am
Fixing other country’s issues, real or manufactured, rather than the ones here is the American Way.
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May 28, 2015 at 11:19 am
Nobody gives a fig about soccer in this country
And that’s especially true in the US — nobody here really cares about the sport or FIFA, and there are very few here whose power or livelihood depends on it.
Total and utter nonsense. There is a massive football industry in the US, and claiming there isn’t just because you personally don’t like the game (you probably prefer rounders) is naive. When NBC pays $250 million dollars for TV rights for one foreign league for three seasons to show games on Sat/Sun morning, it is ridiculous to claim that ‘nobody cares about the sport in the US’. Further, many of these games regularly attract >500,000 viewers, which is remarkable given that the games typically start at 9 am on Sat/Sun morning. Last May the final day of the English premier league drew 5 million viewers, and Arsenal Vs Man Utd drew 1.5 million alone. The $250 million paid by NBC will seem like a bargain in a year or two as TV rights here in the US are predicted to skyrocket, and ESPN, FOX, BeIN and NBC will all compete for the rights again. But nobody cares, right?
Oh, and I have some more stats for you:
– 25 million people in the US participate in the game according to FIFA
– 24 million watched a single World Cup game between Spain and Holland. That’s more viewers than the NCAA basketball championship, or the Rose Bowl.
– 3 million youth players registered in the US
– 4th most popular sport to watch on TV in the US (above hockey, tennis and golf)
– 20,000 average attendance at MLS games
– The Seattle Sounders has an average attendance of 45,000
– 20 professional teams in the MLS alone, with all the players, staff etc to go with it.
– The mens US national team regular qualifies for the world Cup and usually performs well (last 16 in 2014)
The US also bid for the 2022 World Cup and lost to Qatar. Did they do this because nobody cares? Doubtful. There is a lot of speculation that the US is leading the prosecution of the FIFA execs because they would like to overturn the Qatar win (which was clearly corrupted) and bring the World Cup to the USA.
You can argue that football is not as popular as other US sports like netball, handball and rounders, and you would be correct, but you simply can’t argue that nobody cares about the sport in the US. That just makes you look more than a little bit simple.
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May 28, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Going all nonlinear in response to obvious bait makes you look more than a little bit simple.
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May 28, 2015 at 12:07 pm
(Hint: my offspring are contributors to one of your stats)
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May 28, 2015 at 12:37 pm
Going all nonlinear in response to obvious bait makes you look more than a little bit simple
Ah, yes, you were trolling. Of course you were. Either way, the record is straight.
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May 28, 2015 at 6:58 pm
I know you’re trolling, but this was an accidental investigation that stemmed from investigating money laundering by organized crime (and FIFA…)/
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May 28, 2015 at 8:05 pm
It wasn’t trolling. I really didn’t know why we would be involved in this stupid Euro stuff
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May 28, 2015 at 8:36 pm
Because crimes were committed and a prosecutor with jurisdiction has chosen to go after a high-profile defendant. Bog simple, no conspiracy required.
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May 28, 2015 at 10:26 pm
Has anybody considered that the Department of justice is just outraged at the corruption and are doing it out of conviction?….hmpffffff! I can’t say that with a straight face, HaHAHAHAHA!!! Like England let Pinochet go free because he was sick.
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May 28, 2015 at 10:53 pm
dr24hours May 28, 2015 at 8:36 pm
Because crimes were committed and a prosecutor with jurisdiction has chosen to go after a high-profile defendant. Bog simple, no conspiracy required.
If that’s your H0, the p-value based on the last 10 year of evidence is way below 0.05
So people have more the sufficient justification to look for other explanations
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May 29, 2015 at 10:13 am
Wow. This thread/comment section is the most ignorant I’ve ever heard DM sound (the author not the website).
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May 29, 2015 at 10:37 am
JD- stick around longer, DM goes off the rails all the time, heh. Bread and circus, as mentioned above, was my first thought. On the other hand, Fifa is so ridiculously corrupt that I admit to satisfaction that some institution is going after them.
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May 29, 2015 at 10:39 am
It wasn’t trolling. I really didn’t know why we would be involved in this stupid Euro stuff
ha!
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May 29, 2015 at 1:54 pm
It is because Bill Clinton threw a hissy fit when the world cup went to Qatar in a blatantly rigged vote.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/10871114/Qatar-World-Cup-2022-scandal-Bill-Clintons-fury-at-vote-triggered-global-search-for-truth.html
Oh and 5 minutes of futbol are more entertaining than an entire season of baseball players scratching their asses, chewing tobacco and looking bored in the dugout.
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May 30, 2015 at 10:21 am
Tax evasion and money laundering, read the recent NYT article on the history of the investigation.
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May 30, 2015 at 7:13 pm
I think the legal case was part accidental and part an effort to attack corruption in international ventures, of which FIFA is only one example, and, potentially, an easier one to crack than others (say, the Olympics).
The US relies on a rule of law in which corruption and bribery are thought to be fairly rare, and to only affect a small number of people and lives. In some other countries corruption is wide spread (nearly everyone needs to pay to play, success of various forms is synonymous with bribery, cheating is widespread, on tests, SATs, on scientific papers). Because we generally believe our laws and system are fair, we are less susceptible to the argument that we cheat because everyone else does. In order for the US to participate in international systems, we have to bring them into the fold, or accept the differing standards elsewhere. FIFA is one example.
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May 30, 2015 at 11:45 pm
Funny joke zb.
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May 31, 2015 at 10:38 am
Because:
a) Crimes were committed
b) But not by anyone who is friends of Larry Summers or either George Bush or anyone who works on Wall St.
c) It pisses off Putin
But you are right: soccer is like watching paint dry. I used to think baseball was boring; I was sooooooooooooo wrong. Baseball is everything a sport ought to be: you really don’t know who’s going to win until the last out.
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