Sepp Blatter resigns, FIFA ExCo members face extradition

[ThePrideofShiner]

New York Times just dropped a bombshell.
 
Top FIFA officials are being arrested by Swiss authorities at a meeting in Zurich to be extradited to the U.S. to face corruption charges.
 

 
ZURICH — Swiss authorities began an extraordinary early-morning operation here Wednesday to arrest several top soccer officials and extradite them to the United States on federal corruption charges.
 
As leaders of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, gathered for their annual meeting, Swiss law enforcement officials arrived unannounced at the Baur au Lac hotel, an elegant five-star property with views of the Alps and Lake Zurich. The arrests were made at the request of the United States Justice Department, which brought charges in the Eastern District of New York, based in Brooklyn, according to law enforcement officials.
 
Prosecutors planned to unseal an indictment soon against more than 10 officials, not all of whom are in Zurich, three law enforcement officials said. The charges include wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.
 

 
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-face-corruption-charges-in-us.html?smid%3D=tw-nytsports

 

[Silverdude2167]

Wow. No Blatter is to bad though.

 

[Luis Taint]

I just hope Michael Planti isn't involved, he seems like a decent guy.

 

[Luis Taint]

2018 World Cup group stage: USA, Netherlands, Germany, Argentina.

 

[ThePrideofShiner]

CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb is among the indicted.

 

[Luis Taint]

Jack Warner as well.

 

[GraysonGrandeGonads]

Better late than never. Please please someone(s) plea to a deal in turn to turn on Sepp.

 

[ThePrideofShiner]

A Don Garber quote from a couple months after the U.S. lost the 2022 bid to Qatar.
 

 

[Luis Taint]

Eduardo Li from Costa Rica, led away by the Swiss investigators.

 

[SoxFanInCali]

2018 World Cup group stage: USA, Netherlands, Germany, Argentina.

That's assuming we earn the 1 bid that will be awarded to CONCACAF.
 
I'm only half-joking. They are meeting the day after the election to determine the allocations for 2018 and 2022.  Anyone not playing ball might find themselves losing .5 or 1 bid.

 

[ThePrideofShiner]

From the ever-updating Times story, the full list and charges.
 

 
The indictment names 14 people on charges including racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. In addition to senior soccer officials, the indictment is also expected to name sports-marketing executives from the United States and South America who are accused of paying more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for media deals associated with major soccer tournaments, according to one government official briefed on the matter.
 
The official said the soccer officials charged are Jeffrey Webb, Eugenio Figueredo, Jack Warner, Eduardo Li, Julio Rocha, Costas Takkas, Rafael Esquivel, José Maria Marin and Nicolás Leoz.
 
Charges were also expected against the sports-marketing executives Alejandro Burzaco, Aaron Davidson, Hugo Jinkis and Mariano Jinkis. Authorities also charged José Margulies as an intermediary who facilitated illegal payments.

 
 
Are all these people from CONCACAF and CONMEBOL? If so, can't FIFA just claim this is all isolated to those two federations?

 

[Luis Taint]

Just reported on CNN, FIFA executive committee is high level talks about postponing the election.

 

[Spacemans Bong]

Those guys are gonna sing like canaries when the prospect of a long time in a federal pen becomes clear to them. This shit is going to flow upwards and quick.

 

[Papelbon's Poutine]

Yeah, this is going to be fun to watch.

 

[Apisith]

I really hope they get squeezed and they squeal like pigs that they are.

 

[ThePrideofShiner]

Deadspin has a good breakdown on everything that has happened so far tonight. It's an easy way to catch up: http://screamer.deadspin.com/reports-justice-department-brings-the-goddamn-hammer-d-1707109298?utm_campaign

 

[Luis Taint]

Why in God's name would you use American banks to originate bribe money? I would do absolutely anything to stay out of our banking systems reporting pratices.

 

[ThePrideofShiner]

This is interesting, though I guess not surprising. 
 
The Associated Press ‏@AP  5m5 minutes ago
BREAKING: Swiss prosecutors: electronic data, documents seized at FIFA's headquarters in graft probe
 
 
Per the Deadspin link, authorities had to move before December 2015, because of a statute of limitations from when the Qatar bid was announced (Dec. 2, 2010). So, they grab these guys, hope one rolls and then they get the kingpins? Or was the end game just to get these folks - not that they are small timers, or anything, just not Blatter.

 

[Luis Taint]

FIFA is saying they're the aggrieved party, at the press conference. What a bunch of arrogant assholes.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

This is freaking awesome. According to this BBC report, Chuck Blazer was wearing a wire at the FBI's behest during meetings in 2012!

 

[AimingForYoko]

Hilarious news to wake up to. That fucking crook Jack Warner in handcuffs will pretty much made my year.

I can't wait to see if The Right Hon. Kamla (Trinidad's prime minister and crook in her right) squeals on him.

This will be fun.

 

[blueguitar322]

Group of Life (in prison)

 

[Titans Bastard]

Man, this is awesome.  With 14 indicted and 9 in custody, one would think there is a lot of opportunity to get guys to talk and build on this.
 
The only bad news is that Jack Warner is still at large.  What an asshole.

 

[johnmd20]

FIFA is unapologetically corrupt? Who knew?
 
Anyway, I echo the sentiments in this thread and I hope these guys sing.

 

[Titans Bastard]

I guess Sepp won't be attending the 2015 Gold Cup final or 2016 Copa Libertadores final after all.

 

[canderson]

Novice question: Are any European countries behind the U.S. doing this - ie have they been working together to orchestrate bribe details and so forth? 
 
U.S. vs The World would be interesting, but to kill FIFA you need a lot more I'd think.

 

[Titans Bastard]

This must be the greatest day of Andrew Jennings' life.

 

[crystalline]

Novice question: Are any European countries behind the U.S. doing this - ie have they been working together to orchestrate bribe details and so forth? 
 
U.S. vs The World would be interesting, but to kill FIFA you need a lot more I'd think.

Maybe but if the US starts putting people in federal prison I see two outcomes: FIFA vilifies the US (and pushes it out?) or the bribery stops.
Its not like these guys can just live in Europe and ignore US law, they are being extradited from Switzerland.

I suppose several European countries could agree not to extradite FIFA leadership
Is that even possible under international law?

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Novice question: Are any European countries behind the U.S. doing this - ie have they been working together to orchestrate bribe details and so forth? 
 
U.S. vs The World would be interesting, but to kill FIFA you need a lot more I'd think.

 
My uneducated guess is that the US could do it alone if they wanted - just ask Iran how easy it is to move money around the world when the US doesn't want you to - but the level of Swiss and Interpol cooperation here suggests they had allies in this.  You don't get to flout the rules of the civilized, law-abiding world, dealing and receiving bribes to various dictators, and then take refuge in the protection of perhaps the world's most civilized and law-abiding country (Switzerland).  That's kinda just poking the bear, and the Swiss are a really bad choice to poke.
 
It's not that big a stretch, though - under the current way business is being done, the European countries wouldn't be awarded the hosting of jack shit going forward, so what do they have to lose?  Moreover, Switzerland has a recent history of cooperation with us: they recently changed their domestic banking law so that UBS and Credit Suisse could fork over the names of US tax evaders who had accounts in their country, thereby screwing a bunch of rich assholes.  They'll take care of their own, and they value privacy, but Switzerland generally has a very dim opinion of harboring and sheltering foreign assholes - it brings them the wrong kind of attention.  Just wait until we crack down on the WEF in Davos!
 
My big question here is whether they'll postpone Blatter's re-coronation, to see whether the US has (or gets) anything to nail him personally.

 

[ifmanis5]

Holy crap this is huge. Finally! A nice little FU to Russia in there as well. Hope they have Putin on tape demanding money and whores.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Maybe but if the US starts putting people in federal prison I see two outcomes: FIFA vilifies the US (and pushes it out?) or the bribery stops.
Its not like these guys can just live in Europe and ignore US law, they are being extradited from Switzerland.

I suppose several European countries could agree not to extradite FIFA leadership
Is that even possible under international law?

 
You're suggesting that European legislators - who answer to their domestic voters - would proactively vote to change their extradition treaties with the US to specifically exclude FIFA leadership?  "Bribed officials" is not a very large constituency.  There'd be enough mocking in the papers and possibly protests that it'd be a political loser.  Democracy isn't perfect, but it probably works well enough in Europe to prevent sheltering a universally-hated cadre of gangsters.

 

[sachmoney]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/27/sports/soccer/the-fifa-officials-charged-with-corruption.html

 
Nicolás Leoz

Leoz, 86, served as president of Conmebol, the South American soccer association, from 1986 to 2013 and was a longtime member of FIFA's executive committee, but he resigned both positions two years ago, citing health and personal issues. His resignation came after he was accused of taking kickbacks from a former FIFA marketing partner during the 1990s, and after an official for England's 2018 World Cup bid said Leoz had demanded a knighthood in exchange for his vote.

This is my favorite bribery request thus far.

 

[Devizier]

 
You're suggesting that European legislators - who answer to their domestic voters - would proactively vote to change their extradition treaties with the US to specifically exclude FIFA leadership?  "Bribed officials" is not a very large constituency. 

 
That said, rapist filmmakers isn't a large constituency, either, and look how well it worked for Roman Polanski.

 

[loshjott]

Holy crap this is huge. Finally! A nice little FU to Russia in there as well. Hope they have Putin on tape demanding money and whores.

 
He'd be the one offering them, not demanding them.

 

[Average Reds]

 
That said, rapist filmmakers isn't a large constituency, either, and look how well it worked for Roman Polanski.

 
That was the first thing that came to mind, but there were actually some legal issues of consequence with the extradition request for Polanski (and the Swiss are very fastidious about process) so the analogy is not precise.  Still ...

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Some further details from the WSJ's ongoing reporting:
 

The 47-count indictment accuses two generations of soccer officials of working with sports marketing executives to shut out competitors and keep lucrative contracts for themselves.
 
Prosecutors said U.S. and South American sports marketing executives paid more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to FIFA officials to obtain media and marketing rights to international soccer tournaments.

 
Something tells me a lot of these sports marketing executives may not have the same level of international impunity as FIFA.  There might be a whole lot more arrests in the US and Europe - they just needed to get the FIFAns first, with the element of surprise.
 

FIFA was also hit Wednesday by a separate investigation by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland. It said it had opened criminal proceedings against individuals “on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and of money laundering” in connection with the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, awarded to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
 
As part of the probe, it seized electronic data and documents from FIFA’s head office in Zurich and said it would question 10 people who took part in the voting. Swiss authorities said they were cooperating with their counterparts in the U.S. and that the information seized could be used in criminal prosecutions in Switzerland and abroad.

 
So I guess we'll be able to read the full Garcia report soon.  Up until now, we just had empty promises (really, lies) by Blatter on that count.
 
And the cherry on top:
 

A spokesperson for FIFA said “the timing may not be the best” but that the organization welcomed the process and was cooperating fully with the authorities.
 
FIFA spokesman Walter de Gregorio said the investigations wouldn’t affect this week’s FIFA Congress to elect its president or the venue of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. FIFA President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter hasn't commented publicly on the investigations, but is “not a happy man today,” Mr. de Gregorio said.
 
“He’s not dancing in his office. He’s just very calm, he sees what happens, he has fully cooperated with everybody,” he added, noting that Mr. Blatter wasn’t involved in the investigation.

 
Translation: he's looking up property values in the Cook Islands.

 

[DJnVa]

I like that one line that FIFA is trying is that these arrests are related to CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, not their shit over there.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

He'd be the one offering them, not demanding them.

 
Yeah, Putin is somewhere between 10x and 10,000x more savvy about this stuff than anyone at FIFA.  He's already believed to be the world's richest man, worth some $70 Bn.  There is nothing FIFA can offer him (other than hosting the cup, which they already gave him) that he could possibly want.  What he wants is influence over foreign countries, which is easier to do if he's got a lot of FIFA and IOC people in his pocket.  And of course, it'd be some murky Russian-looking guy with a fake passport doing all the backroom stuff and never mentioning him by name.  Anyone doing that on his behalf was frankly probably executed years ago, just to ensure they couldn't talk to the Associated Press if they fled to the US or something.
 
They'll end up nailing a lot of politicians of third-rate countries, and maybe Brazilians too, but nobody who seriously matters in world affairs.  The odds of any country banning the ruling emirate of Qatar from travel or imposing economic sanctions on the autocrats involved here is miniscule.

 

[Silverdude2167]

Holy crap this is huge. Finally! A nice little FU to Russia in there as well. Hope they have Putin on tape demanding money and whores.

Well Russia thinks the US is being a big meanie again and is just doing this to hurt them.
 

 
A correspondent for Russia's state-owned Rossiya 24 TV channel has said that Wednesday's arrests are "a US attempt to set a precedent after which they may with a vengeance start demanding that Fifa strip Russia of the right to hold the world championship".
The correspondent adds that "this isn't the first time the US has been using sport as political leverage".

 

[ifmanis5]

Meanwhile, over at the IOC HQ...
 

 

[Zososoxfan]

This has to be related to tomorrow's vote, right? Is it known or understood whether this favors Blatter or Prince Ali bin al-Hussein?

 

[Bozo Texino]

This is going to be so, so great.  I can't wait to see all of these CONCACAF/CONMEBOL dudes turn on Blatter.
 
My favorite little nugget so far has been this quote by Luis Figo, after he dropped out of the running for the FIFA presidency...
 

 
This process is anything but an election.  This process is a plebiscite for the delivery of absolute power to one man - something I refuse to go along with.

 
I mean, DAMN.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Well Russia thinks the US is being a big meanie again and is just doing this to hurt them.

 
Or they're actually afraid that the FBI and Interpol might have something here and are trying to play the game of public opinion to ensure nothing happens.

 

[Detts]

The US has finally won the World Cup!

 

[crystalline]

Some further details from the WSJ's ongoing reporting:
 
 
Something tells me a lot of these sports marketing executives may not have the same level of international impunity as FIFA.  There might be a whole lot more arrests in the US and Europe - they just needed to get the FIFAns first, with the element of surprise.
 
 
So I guess we'll be able to read the full Garcia report soon.  Up until now, we just had empty promises (really, lies) by Blatter on that count.
 
And the cherry on top:
 
 
Translation: he's looking up property values in the Cook Islands.

If the Swiss government is investigating too, that bodes well for the idea its not going to be US-against-the-world here. We will see.

 

[Titans Bastard]

This is freaking awesome. According to this BBC report, Chuck Blazer was wearing a wire at the FBI's behest during meetings in 2012!

 
Blazer is more awesome than most corrupt FIFA officials.
 
https://twitter.com/ChrisHowdy/status/603553692751667200

 

[fletcherpost]

I was watching the news late last night and it said Blatter was a shoe in to keep his job, it then cut to a guy representing the Irish FA who said they would not be supporting him and gave some reasons why: FIFA's brand had been tarnished, to repair it Blatter needs to go was the gist.
 
This was before the shit blew up. I would love Blatter to fuck off and never come back, but I don't want someone to take his place and it just be business as usual. If this shit storm does trickle up and goes all the way to the top it will be good for FIFA and more important good for the game. Qatar gettting the World Cup was the real eye opener for me and my eyes were never totally shut.
 
Time and again I read quotes from ex players lambasting Blatter and his ways. I've not been able to work out how he's kept his job so long. I know bribery and corrupton and some sharing of the wealth, but one imagines there are good men and women in the game who can stand up against the corruption that is rife in FIFA.
 
We need a culling. I hope this is just the start.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Roger Goodell has to be loving this, by the way - he may be incompetent, but at least he's not blatantly corrupt and incompetent.

 

[Monbo Jumbo]

 

This is freaking awesome. According to this BBC report, Chuck Blazer was wearing a wire at the FBI's behest during meetings in 2012!

 

 
Good Buzzfeed piece on Blazer from last year. "Mr. Ten Percent"

 

[blueguitar322]

Novice question: Are any European countries behind the U.S. doing this - ie have they been working together to orchestrate bribe details and so forth? 
 
U.S. vs The World would be interesting, but to kill FIFA you need a lot more I'd think.

 
I'm not an expert but my understanding is that the FA (England's soccer governing body) has been pushing for justice for some time, partially because they lost the 2018 bid through what appear to be underhanded means but also because several big media groups in the UK have been pushing the "FIFA is corrupt" story for some time.