FIFA: For the Game. For the World... For the Money.

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New 2015 FBI criminal charges from the US allege FIFA officials accepted over $150M in bribes and kickbacks. The scandal threatens to entangle major international soccer corporations such as Nike and may finally lead to the downfall of FIFA's president, Sepp Blatter. Learn about these conspiracies and more... including possible match-fixing, awards rigged to benefit the sponsors of Messi and Ronaldo, special FIFA laws that overrule constitutional rights, the 2018 Russia and 2022 Qatar World Cups being bought with bribes, and human right violations and the abuse of slave workers to build football stadiums.

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Music: “Dance In The Dark” by Svarog

Transcript:

The 2014 World Cup increased global ad spending by $1.5B, so it should be no surprise that soccer marketers wanted maximum exposure. Stars sell, and it has been alleged that the rights to pick star-studded squads for Brazil and Argentina were sold for over $40M in bribes. In exchange, third-party influence peddlers were supposedly able to make sure the biggest soccer names could represent their sponsors. Many also found it curious that ADIDAS sponsored Lionel Messi was awarded player of the tournament despite being outshone by other relatively unknowns... ...reminding some of the 2013 player of the year vote that is rumored to have been delayed to allow NIKE sponsored Ronaldo to collect more votes and win.

Since Sepp Blater was elected FIFA president in 1998, corruption has allegedly been so rife that it has been compared to an organized crime-syndicate. Blatter's reign began after he was accused of buying off 18 African delegates with $50k passed to each in brown envelopes. The FIFA boss sought to quash an investigation by paying $25k to a referee to dig up dirt on his opponent... ...with another $25k promised for information that "suited the president." When the payment came to light, Blatter claimed that he had merely given the "poor" African "devil" the money out of the goodness of his heart. Blatter's has supposedly cost FIFA over $500M through ticketing schemes and TV contracts that funnel funds to family members and cronies.

During the South African and Brazilian World Cups, special "FIFA courts" were established to ensure the marketability of the games. Constitutional rights were cast aside to allow expedited 24-hour trials that enforced FIFA-specific laws designed to protect sponsors...
...shutting down local vendors and banning the promotion or carrying of unauthorized "brand objects" in exclusion zones around stadiums. FIFA also forced the changes of existing laws, requiring exemptions to alcohol bans so that Budweiser may be sold as the official beer... ...and forced the countries to give-up nearly, according to some studies, $1B in revenue by allowing sponsor products to be imported tax-free.

Staging the 2014 World Cup cost Brazilian taxpayers $15B while FIFA took home a record tax-free profit of $2.6B. For the privilege of hosting the Cup, Brazil was left with its most expensive new stadium now a parking lot... ...while another that sits empty in the middle of the Amazon. The human-cost was also enormous, with 250k poor Brazilians forcefully removed from favelas to clean up stadium sites. FIFA unsuccessfully tried to calm outraged protests in the country by allocating a paltry $100M from its profits to setup a "World Cup Legacy Fund." ...but fresh concerns of abuse have been raised due to reports that 1.4M migrant workers for the 2022 Qatar World Cup are treated like slaves... with 4k deaths expected.

In 2015, the US charged 11 FIFA officials with accepting over $150M kickbacks in return for lucrative marketing contracts... ...and alleged that South Africa arranged for $10M to be laundered through FIFA and given away in suitcases for the right to host the 2010 World Cup. Nike was also reportedly implicated in a $30M bribery scheme involving Brazil and FIFA officials to win sponsorship of the Brazil national team. The US action set in motion a parallel Swiss investigation into claims that the Qatar delegation offered $1M for each 2022 host vote... ...while Italian newspapers piled on, claiming FIFA fixed matches in favor of South Korea during the 2002 Cup to grow Asia's interest in soccer.

Intro: "The Machine Thinks"
by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/