The arrest and indictment of FIFA officials may be a turning-point for football’s scandal-hit governing body
SPORT is riddled with graft, from the bungs given to officials who help hand tournaments to undeserving countries, to the betting syndicates that rake in ill-gotten gains from match-fixing with help from unscrupulous players. Football’s world governing body, FIFA, more than any other sports organisation, has become a global symbol of this pervasive corruption.
It has been beset by scandal in recent years, connected to, among other things, the distribution of global marketing rights and the awarding to Russia and Qatar of the rights to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals respectively. Numerous investigations have been held, and several reports penned. But they have failed to stop the rot at the Zurich-based organisation.
America's arrests are just the beginning of the process of straightening out FIFA
That may change after the events of May 27th. Swiss police, at the request of American prosecutors, swooped on a Zurich hotel and arrested seven of the organisation’s officials on suspicion of receiving bribes totalling more than $100m. Among those marched off was a FIFA vice-president, Jeffrey Webb, a Caymanian who heads CONCACAF, the bit of FIFA that oversees North and Central America and the Caribbean—the last of which regions has been at the centre of many palm-greasing allegations over the years. Also arrested were officials from Uruguay, Brazil and Costa Rica, one of whom had been due to join FIFA’s executive committee this week.
America’s FBI has been probing FIFA’s shenanigans for at least four years. Though no football superpower, the United States would have jurisdiction over any transactions that flowed through its financial system, were paid in dollars or were planned on American soil. Switzerland won’t extradite its own citizens but is willing to send foreigners, if certain conditions are met.
The biggest kerfuffles at FIFA have concerned the circumstances surrounding its awarding of the next two sets of finals. But the American investigation stretches back much further. In an indictment unsealed on the day of the arrests, the United States charged nine FIFA officials (including the seven arrested in Zurich) and five others with racketeering, wire fraud and money-laundering that allegedly began almost a quarter of a century ago. Some of the allegations relate to the collapse in 2001 of ISL, a marketing agency affiliated with FIFA. Marketing executives allegedly paid over $150m in bribes to obtain media and marketing rights to tournaments.
Besides Mr Webb, those charged included Jack Warner, his Trinidadian predecessor. American officials said four of the accused had already pleaded guilty (including Mr Warner’s sons). Mr Warner has consistently dismissed allegations against him as “unholy” and “damn foolishness”. CONCACAF’s offices in Miami were also raided this week. The case was bolstered by the co-operation of a former FIFA official, Chuck Blazer, who wore a wire.
America’s actions should encourage other countries to probe FIFA more assiduously. Tellingly, in a separate case, Swiss law enforcers this week raided FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, seized electronic records and said they had opened criminal proceedings against “persons unknown” on suspicion of money-laundering and other possible offences in connection with the 2018 and 2022 competitions. Ten FIFA members who participated in the voting, including Russia’s sports minister, are to be questioned.
FIFA officials had been gathering at the Baur au Lac hotel for the organisation’s annual congress. In a vote on May 29th, after we went to press, they were to elect a president. The incumbent, Sepp Blatter (who was not among those arrested or accused) was the strong favourite to clinch a fifth term in charge, thanks to strong support from African and Asian members. The only other contender is Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, others having pulled out in recent weeks, citing an atmosphere of autocracy. (Mr Blatter was once dubbed “the most successful non-homicidal dictator of the past century”.)
At a hurriedly convened press conference, a FIFA spokesman insisted that the election would go ahead. The raids were, he suggested, somewhat implausibly, part of FIFA’s reform process. UEFA, European football’s umbrella organisation, called for the vote to be postponed and talked of boycotting it if it were not. If it went ahead, and Mr Blatter were to win, more international opprobrium would surely be heaped on FIFA’s tin-eared leaders. The 79-year-old may not have been charged with anything, but he has presided over the darkest chapter of FIFA’s chequered history.
A look at FIFA's money machine
The big question for FIFA in the short term, apart from who will run it, is whether it can be made to reconsider awarding the next World Cup finals to Russia and Qatar. It should, though it looks unlikely to. The American case does not focus on the voting for those tournaments. Even if the Swiss probe, which does, unearths something, it would have to be highly damning for the 2018 bidding to be reopened; an alternative host would be hard-pressed to get ready in three years. Qatar is more vulnerable, but having survived a variety of scandals already, including one over its treatment of migrant workers, it may yet survive this one.
The longer-term question is what this week’s events mean for reform of FIFA. Like most other international sports governing bodies, the organisation has a natural monopoly on its sport due to the daunting barriers to entry for any potential rival organisation. Football associations in rich countries might boycott its tournaments—there has been talk of this within the European federation—but then they would lose the riches that come with hosting international tournaments, including sponsorship deals. Associations in poor countries depend on FIFA’s handouts and are most vulnerable to bribes. (The alleged bribing in the Qatari vote was mostly directed at African delegates.)
Switzerland has long benefited from the organisation’s presence on its soil—so FIFA still enjoys a favourable tax status and minimal regulation. On their past record, any extra oversight of FIFA by the Swiss authorities in the wake of the investigations may be modest.
Some of the World Cup’s biggest sponsors expressed concern at how the scandals had “tarnished”, as Coca-Cola put it, the image of the tournament. Visa said that if FIFA failed to make changes, it would reassess its sponsorship. The best hope for reform may well come from the corporations that bankroll the World Cup, as they fear the taint will attach to them.
Change can be effected, as the experience of the International Olympic Committee shows. In the 1990s it had a series of scandals, including one about gift-giving ahead of the 2002 Salt Lake City winter games. It has since improved governance with a series of measures, including expulsions of bad eggs, stricter bidding rules and term limits for committee members. FIFA has introduced some reforms, and a whistleblower hotline, but it remains murky and conflict-ridden.
America receives plenty of flak for stretching the long arm of its law across the world. In this case, many of its critics will be grateful that it has lobbed a legal grenade into an organisation that has got away with too much for too long. Prince Ali called May 27th “a sad day for football”. It may yet be seen as a happy one—if the reverberations help to bring about a long-overdue clean-up at the world’s most notorious sports organisation.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "Polishing up a tarnished trophy"
