While the arrest last week of several officials of FIFA, the world soccer federation, looked like law enforcement theater, those charges, along with the indictment of seven other individuals by the U.S. authorities, were deadly serious. The charges of "rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted corruption" involve hundreds of millions of dollars and are likely to color the decisions to award the World Cup finals to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022. The "beautiful game" is now anything but that.
The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating wrongdoing at FIFA for years, focusing on decisions to award marketing and media rights to soccer tournaments in the U.S. and Latin America, in particular World Cup qualifying matches and the Copa America, the South American championship. According to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, bribery has influenced FIFA decisions since 1991 "over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament." In a painstaking, piecemeal fashion, U.S. prosecutors have built a case that reportedly reaches the highest ranks of FIFA. That investigation culminated in the indictment of 14 international soccer officials or sports marketing executives on bribery, racketeering, fraud and money-laundering charges. Seven of those people were arrested at the swanky Baur au Lac Hotel in Zurich, Switzerland, where they were attending FIFA's Congress.
At the same time, Swiss authorities are investigating decisions to award the World Cup finals to Russia and Qatar in 2018 and 2022, respectively. Many observers were at a loss to explain both decisions. Russia is not known for its soccer prowess — prompting charges of vote buying — and temperatures in Qatar can top 49 degrees in summer, when the tournament would be held. In addition, there have been charges of abuse of migrant labor to build the tournament facilities.