Sepp Blatter resigns, FIFA ExCo members face extradition
- Thread starter ThePrideofShiner
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DrewDawg said:
Surely the US is the driving force but they aren't a lone wolf or anything, the Swiss attorney general is the one doing a separate investigation over the bidding of 2018/2022. I think if the cups are re-bid, high on the list of aggrieved parties would be the ones went through all the trouble to put together bids and lost to corrupt bids, so they perhaps should have first crack, and if they don't want to bid, then others should get to enter.
2018 - Belgium/Netherlands, England, Spain/Portugal, Russia
2022 - Australia, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, USA
I'm particularly intrigued by the Spain/Portugal bid - nine completed stadiums and at least three others that were good enough but didn't make the cut, so getting to ten should be easy.
Bosoxen said:
Heck, there are chunks of America without potable water. Actually, their water has chunks of America in it.
Spain/Portugal/Morocco would be a killer bid if the 3 would be so inclined, IMHO. The Tangiers/Tarifa ferry still runs smoothly, I assume.Infield Infidel said:
GraysonGrandeGonads said:
Oh shit, I didn't realize Morocco had four 40K+ all seater stadiums built in the last 12 years. I forgot they were supposed to host the African Nations Cup this year.
That would be awesome and could really bridge some issues between federations brought about by these scandals.
edit- Morocco had the Club World Cup the last couple years too. I never pay much attention to that tournament.
Russia is indeed up for grabs.
Law enforcement official: FBI probe of FIFA includes scrutiny of World Cup awards to Russia and to Qatar - @Reuters http://t.co/D4FROcolgO
— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) June 3, 2015
Law enforcement official: FBI probe of FIFA includes scrutiny of World Cup awards to Russia and to Qatar - @Reuters http://t.co/D4FROcolgO
— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) June 3, 2015
Infield Infidel said:
They were also among the two finalists to get the 2010 World Cup, at least before those payments from South Africa to FIFA and Jack Warner.
South Africa sports minister (Fikile Mbalula) just had a presser and categorically denied all allegations of wrongdoing. Well, I guess that clears him.
I'm pretty sure Morocco lost out on the vote for the 1994 World Cup as well. They've been desperate to get one for decades now.
Bosoxen said:
The conversation about "third world" piqued my interest, since don't hear it much anymore. Mexico could be in or out depending on how you want to define the term (doesn't make sense anymore geopolitically nor in terms of a country stuck at the bottom of the development pole, but on the flip as a loose shorthand for non-G20 countries still kind of works). Bottom line is 1st/2nd/3rd worlds are outdated terms for any country:
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm
singaporesoxfan said:
Well the alternative is the money walking away from the table. I don't know how feasible that is, because UEFA is not a united front and neither is the CONCACAF big boys (US/Mex/Can) while Oz and NZ would be defeated pretty quickly in any power struggle. I know CONMEBOL largely didn't vote Blatter but we know there's corruption there. People and FAs will have their own self-interests. England is largely motivated by their inability to host a World Cup, as are Australia and the USA. Clubs are probably sick of FIFA's love of international friendlies and so on. For all I know, Canada's mad because FIFA didn't make Jonathan de Guzman or Owen Hargreaves play for Canada.
But there likely needs to be some reform, because there is a gap between who pays the bills, which is Europe more than anybody else, and who the power brokers are (all the people on the ExCo, basically) and the one nation, one vote system. At the very least, focusing on corruption and transparency gets more honest people into FIFA who might have different values and opinions, but put the game first. That will snag people in the "rebel federations/associations" (like anybody believes Platini is honest?) but it will put everybody on the same page.
singaporesoxfan said:
Here's one half-assed idea to keep one country one vote but change the structure.
-The large, well-funded countries, say 10+ million population and some large amount of per capita or total soccer spending, reject all Goal Project and FAP socer development money. Currently that's dispersed to everyone, not exactly equally but fairly closely. IIRC, FAP money ranges from $500k to $3m per country, and I think Goal Project money is in the similar range. For the larger countries, that's a drop in the bucket. For instance, China got $600k FAP money, big deal. The money that those countries reject is dispersed to middle tier and smaller countries. Large countries that don't want to refuse the money don't have to.
-In exchange for giving up this money, the large countries get supervotes. Everyone still votes just once For a vote to pass, it must win a majority of both the overall votes and the supervotes. If something only wins one or the other, then they have to negotiate with the other side for something that works for everyone. I don't think there would be more than 30-50 supervotes.
The small countries would get around what they are getting now maybe more, the middle tier gets more, and the larger countries that bring in most of the money have more say (still perhaps not enough say but definitely more).
singaporesoxfan said:
The very first World Cup was held in Uruguay. Brazil, Chile and Argentina have also hosted before. Mexico has also hosted twice. Joao Havelange steered the World Cup to South Korea and Japan. If I could have written that in neon I would have. The idea that Blatter has given the world cup to developing countries it never used to go to is absolute bullcrap.
What Blatter has done is to make it more difficult for developing countries to host by increasing the cost of the venues. Countries like South Africa can host the World Cup, but only by building a bunch of white elephant stadiums.
Meanwhile under Blatter there has been more consolidation of money and top players in Europe. He has done nothing to help developing countries protect their domestic leagues. (Despite being a "retirement league," there were more MLS players in the last World Cup than from Brazil's leagues.) He is not a friend to the non-Anglo/European world. He is a friend to men who like brown envelopes stuffed with cash.
GraysonGrandeGonads said:
Morocco has about half to two third of the stadiums they would need, and are planning on building the others for a 2026 World Cup bid. It also has decent tourist infrastructure due to the Mediterranean cruise industry. Their national team is also pretty solid.
Morocco would not be a great choice in a vacuum, but they would be a massive improvement on Qatar.
DrewDawg said:
And consider that the US military operates a base there. What are the joint chiefs of staff going to think about getting kicked out of a critical base in the gulf for the sake of moving a soccer tournament?
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Spacemans Bong said:
What evidence is there that he is not? He seemed to be the only one who wasn't going Baghdad Bob over the 2022 selection and the Garcia report.
moly99 said:
Who the hell said that? The problem people have isn't that there was an effort to enhance football in developing countries. The problem people have is that Blatter and his crony system handed the World Cup to undeserving countries who paid the highest price to get it. I don't think either country could be classified as "developing", but they sure as hell aren't exactly cradles of the sport.
Infield Infidel said:
I like it, a bicameral legislature. This is more-or-less the classic answer for how to deal with democratic representation in federal systems where the units have some claim to equal treatment but are highly unequal in size.
MentalDisabldLst said:
Au contraire, mon frere. Platini was a huge supporter of Qatar (and voted for it) and his son is the CEO of a Qatari sports clothing company.
I think one of the greatest misconceptions people have about Blatter is that he is pro-Qatar. He voted for Australia.
moly99 said:
None of those were developing nations at the time.
Mexico, Brazil, and especially South Korea and Japan have no place on a list of developing countries. Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile are now, but things were very different when they hosted. Argentina was the 7th richest nation in the world by per-capita GDP as late as the 1930s and is still a G-20 nation ranked as middle-emerging by the IECD; it was certainly at least second-tier still in 1978. Chile didn't fall apart until the late 1960s, a few years post-Cup. Uruguay was a very strong economy until the Depression hit (a year after the Cup) and the 1950s agricultural collapse.
Developing nations in green, newly industrialized in blue (India is a subject of much debate because of the stark variance between regions):
SumnerH said:
This is completely off-base, at least in so far as these terms are actually used by academics who study development and practitioners in the development community. Mexico, Brazil, Chile, or Argentina would be widely considered to have been "developing countries" at the times they hosted the World Cup.
"Developing" is the wrong word. Qatar itself is very rich, after all. "Non-Anglo/European" would probably have been a better phrase.
Anyway, the distribution of World Cups under Blatter is not much different under Blatter than it was before. Half of them have gone to Europe/the USA and roughly the other to the rest of the world. Historically FIFA was never as Euro-centric as the IOC.
Anyway, the distribution of World Cups under Blatter is not much different under Blatter than it was before. Half of them have gone to Europe/the USA and roughly the other to the rest of the world. Historically FIFA was never as Euro-centric as the IOC.
Sort of. It would be like if the Senate votes were included with the House. Have to win a majority of all the votes, but also a majority of the Senate votes.Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
DrewDawg said:
It's out now. The BBC's Dan Roan has posted pics on his Twitter feed but the image is too small for me to read.
Edit: He's posted a link now: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2093153/blazer.pdf
Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
I think you're wrong about Brazil, which most people classified as a newly industrialized country well prior to last year, but Mexico I forgot how long it'd been and how far their economy's come. They were definitely in the developing camp at the time.
Chile and Argentina are much trickier propositions to evaluate; they are usually considered developing nations now, but Chile in the early 1960s probably wasn't--it was right near Ireland in GDP and ahead of Spain, Japan, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Singapore, etc, and was ahead of them on HDI measures as well. Now, Argentina was pretty borderline by 1978; in 1970 it still ranked ahead of some western European nations, but it had slipped dramatically over the decade.
The bigger point is that the WC has never gone to a truly poor developing nation. It's been pretty clearly developed nations or large countries* who are getting pretty close to being them. There's not an Ecuador, Mali, or DRC on the list, or even a Colombia or Niger. That's not at all surprising even without the rampant corruption--hosting a world cup is a big event that needs a lot of infrastructure--but the idea that it was going to poor countries until Blatter made it cost-prohibitive to do so is silly.
*Except possibly Uruguay, in 1930
SumnerH said:
Though Brazil hosted in 1950 as well, when they were clearly developing--my bad. The final paragraph still essentially holds, though, I think.
SumnerH said:
Colombia was originally selected in 1974 to host the 1986 World Cup but had to pull out in 1982 when hosting became economically unfeasible. So that sort of cuts both ways -- they ended up not being capable, but FIFA let them try. And Morocco (currently ranked 61st in GDP and 122st in GDP per capita) has finished second in the voting several times, losing relatively close votes for the 1994, 1998, and 2010 tournaments.
If Qatar is stripped of the 2022 competition - still a big if - then there will be a new bid process probably governed by new rules. We don't know which confederations will be eligible to take part (i.e., if Europe or any other continents will be excluded) or how the bidding will work. But I'm very confident that "making sure the US and the rest of the West doesn't look bad" won't be top of the agenda. Heck, some Machiavellian suits at FIFA would probably trade the awarding of 2022 to the USA for the longer-term benefit of poisoning the soccer world against the USA; they're not just going to give 2022 to Morocco or Turkey or some other halfway house to Qatar to let us off the PR hook in that regard. The fact that the first guy to squeal so far - Blazer - is American won't look good to many people either; much of the world doesn't give a damn about due process or legal thresholds of evidence or First Amendment journalistic freedoms and will just see this as a continued witch hunt by the big bad Yanks against the little guy.
Meanwhile, here's a conspiracy theory posited at Time magazine which suggests Blatter may not have "resigned" (a word he never used in yesterday's press conference) after all:
http://time.com/3907187/football-fifa-sepp-blatter/
This story is going to run and run for a while yet.
Meanwhile, here's a conspiracy theory posited at Time magazine which suggests Blatter may not have "resigned" (a word he never used in yesterday's press conference) after all:
http://time.com/3907187/football-fifa-sepp-blatter/
This story is going to run and run for a while yet.
Oh, and Barney Ronay was exactly right in his column today: people like Greg Dyke and (as of today) Boris Johnson need to shut the hell up. The last thing the football world wants to hear right now are triumphalist lectures from the English.
SumnerH said:
If you want to make up your own definition of the term "developing country," knock yourself out. But, if you want to use the concept the way that academics and development practitioners have and continue to deploy the term, then you are simply wrong. For example, there was a massive scholarly literature in the social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s ("Dependency Theory"), mainly coming out of Latin America itself, that took as a fundamental assumption that the Latin American countries you are talking about were underdeveloped compared to the advanced countries of the west and were properly categorized as "developing nations" or "developing countries." In the West itself, the discourse of "development" and "underdevelopment" was also applied to these countries with regularity.
Where we are not seeing eye-to-eye is that the relative worldwide rank of a country on GDP/capita or HDI measures at a given juncture in time simply has never been the critical factor in determining whether the term "developing country" has been applied to a particular country by academics and development practitioners. The key notions have really been (a) absolute levels of development (b) development relative to the very richest countries of Western Europe and North America.
soxfan121 said:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-chuck-blazer-fifa-20150603-story.html bolding is mine
this buzzfeed article that LA Times linked too is incredible http://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/the-rise-and-fall-of-chuck-blazer-the-man-who-built-and-bilk#.nvmd7BELK
In the midst of this, Warner is setting fire to the Trinidadian government and the Right Hon. Embarrassment herself and it is glooooorious.
The party he bought and paid for (using FIFA money of course) is distancing themselves from him and in return he is leaking checks as proof and incriminating himself in a hilarious manner to fuck them right back.
I knew the minute he was indicted this would happen but actually watching it is amazing.
Loretta Lynch for president of the world tbqh.
The party he bought and paid for (using FIFA money of course) is distancing themselves from him and in return he is leaking checks as proof and incriminating himself in a hilarious manner to fuck them right back.
I knew the minute he was indicted this would happen but actually watching it is amazing.
Loretta Lynch for president of the world tbqh.
steeplechase3k said:
Absolutely fantastic article. Definitely a must read for those at this site whose stomachs turn at the lazy, house-organ sports mediots that are too scared to expose frauds. My favorite quote:
Last amusing quote from the article:
This site should launch a kickstarter for bringing Andrew Jennings to New York in order to A) observe the FIFA trial and B) bring down Goodell.
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GBrushTWood said:
Agreed that it's a great article and deserves an echo. My favorite bit was this:
And of course he's Scottish. Gives zero fucks what everyone else thinks of him, just does what he thinks is right. What a guy.
Cristoph Waltz is great and all, but at this point they should really re-shoot the new Bond and cast Blatter as Blofeld.
I think he was clearly signaling that he would like someone to pay his fare and provide him with accommodations. Amusing.GBrushTWood said:This site should launch a kickstarter for bringing Andrew Jennings to New York in order to A) observe the FIFA trial and B) bring down Goodell.