FIFA Officials Arrested by FBI on Corruption Charges

United States law enforcement officials declared in forceful terms on Wednesday that their broad investigation of FIFA had only begun and pledged to rid the international soccer organization of systemic corruption.

The Justice Department, F.B.I. and I.R.S. described soccer’s governing body in terms normally reserved for Mafia families and drug cartels, saying that top officials treated FIFA business decisions as chits to be traded for personal wealth. One soccer official took in more than $10 million in bribes, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said.

“These individuals and organizations engaged in bribery to decide who would televise games, where the games would be held, and who would run the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide,” said Ms. Lynch, who supervised the investigation from its earliest stages.

The promise that the investigation would continue raised the specter of more arrests, but officials would not comment on whether they were investigating Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president and the man widely regarded as the most powerful person in sports. One federal law enforcement official said Mr. Blatter’s fate would “depend on where the investigation goes from here.”

“This is the beginning of our effort, not the end,” said Kelly T. Currie, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Indeed, the indictment refers to 25 unnamed co-conspirators, from FIFA officials to a South Africa World Cup bid-committee official. “We are looking into individuals and entities in a variety of countries,” Mr. Currie said.The government is pursuing a “very aggressive prosecutorial response in order to change behavior,” said James B. Comey, director of the FBI.

Swiss authorities, working in conjunction with United States officials, conducted an extraordinary early-morning operation in Zurich on Wednesday to arrest several top soccer officials and extradite them to the United States on federal corruption charges.

more here

USA! USA! USA!

Finally! It was about freaking time.

FIFA is the most corrupt institution I've ever seen in my life. My local league had an issue where clubs paid FIFA to denounce and marginalize titles won by other clubs. This went unheard everywhere because it was in Asia!

FYI, those titles that got omitted were freaking league titles! I would understand if it was some cup, but a league with all its glory. So many wasted seasons....

What's more absurd, is that the other club also paid them to recognize friendly tournaments. These money-leeching assholes need to be punished.

I thought they were bringing down charges due to all the dives.

lol, what's fantastic about this is that there is a small sliver of American society that loves soccer, but a vast majority that simply loves the fact that America can't stand it while the rest of the world thinks it's the greatest game ever.

I remember hearing about corruption in soccer years ago.. Seems like we're doing something about it.

They should all be arrested and thrown in jail for being associated with the most boring sports non-entertainment ever.

These arrests, despite being completely justified and have been coming for a long time is not the news story people want it to be. This IMO has come from two parts: 1) Qatar beating the US in the bidding process and 2) the publicity of the migrant workers in Qatar.

In terms of the world cup bid, no one is going to take away the world cup from Qatar and IMO they shouldnt if this is the reason. This is because not only are people going to get sued over breaking contracts for no actually acceptable reason, but you are going to have problems in terms of who to give it to. US and Australia might be the obvious choices but the problems with this is that they were trying the bribe officials as well to get the world cup and it is going to look very bad if US loses a bidding process because they werent bribing officials enough, get outraged, arrest said officials two years later after 20 years of the corruption for said bribery, and then get given the world cup.

The issue with the migrant workers is that the fact that everyone targeted FIFA instead of Qatar itself was quite frankly, a cop out. It was people looking like they were opposing something was simultaniously ignoring the issue. FIFA had nothing to do with them, didnt appove or even know about them during the bidding process. That is an aspect of Qatari culture that has nothing to do with FIFA and no one understood that. And if hypothetically the internet warriors got what they wanted and FIFA took away the world cup because of the migrant warriors. That does nothing for the issue like people were claiming and instead just meant that the majority could ignore the issue like before. This is because as people who would have researched this story have said, Qatar in that scenario wouldnt be remorseful and admit that it is wrong, they would have just blamed the migrant workers for losing them the World Cup which would mean even worse treatment in that culture

But in the end, the biggest reason why this story is not as big as big are treating it as is because FIFA only have one responsibility in the sport, and that is choose which country hosts the world cup. Even if you can get rid of the corruption in making the choice despite all the money involved, there is still the question of how much it actually matters why countries are getting chosen to host this event and if the US didnt lose to Qatar in the bidding process, would we see the same reaction as we did to today in the investigation. Its been going on for at least 20 years according to the report (which is convienantly, the year after the US hosted it) and the US has only tried to intervene in the last two.

TLDR: The arrests are justified, but the story isnt what people want it to be yet and the US arent the moral crusaders it sounds like at first glance

y u do dis man :(

Fifa should be boycotted.

Sigh.... I guess I'll have to watch a match so I can boycott it.

I didn't even know the FBI took lead in such international matters. I would've thought Interpol might be more appropriate.

FBI is going directly after officials who laundered money and took bribes on American soil. So officials from CONCACAF (North America) are the main ones being investigated. The Swiss authorities are doing their own investigation.

I've avoided reading up on this or watching what they've been saying on TV, but I've already got things going through my head that I'm already skeptical about.

For instance, the USDOJ already overlooks tons of potential cases in big money corruption every day, so what's so special about this case? I mean sure I bet whoever was vying for World Cup in the United States was probably making corrupt under the table bribes themselves it's just the Qatar people probably out-brided them. And, these big shots in the US that wanted World Cup probably had money and power, probably had many connections in government with ties or within the DOJ itself. So, in retaliation, with those they lobbied in government, they sic their paid dogs on FIFA out of vengeance.

I mean, if you expect me to believe the FBI and DOJ are doing this out of principle I laugh at that notion.

I can't do anything but laugh seeing those corrupt bags of money being arrested like the scum they are!

To be fair I don't think it really matters at this point. Any sane individual knows the world is grey and everyone is out for their own self interests when it comes to powerful men and women in power. It doesn't matter to me WHY the DoJ is going so hard on FIFA but whatever the reason is, I'm glad they are. Too long has the current regime (and even previous regime) stained the beautiful game.

FIFA chose Qatar knowing it's human rights violations. That makes them just as shitty as Qatar.

@airshockerThe migrant workers were largely overlooked in the bidding process. The human rights issues with Qatar that was mentioned was for Gay people and that was it as no one predicted the number of deaths among the workers in building the stadiums

Who cares if it was overlooked in the bidding process? The violations exist. The treatment of migrant workers is a human rights issue. By having countries that violate basic human rights host the World Cup, FIFA is indirectly supporting those practices.

It matters because of the amount of money tied up in the world cup and the fact that once certain contracts are signed, there can realistically no way back from giving the country the world cup , regardless of what it it may be that they end up being indirectly. And my point regarding those workers wasnt that FIFA arent responsible, it is that these arrests arent going to mean that the World Cup is going to be taken off Qatar like people seem to be expecting to and the idea that the way to oppose the use of those workers and try and force a solution through FIFA was a cop out as they arent the real problem.

Then FIFA cares more about money than they do about human rights. It's as simple as that.

FIFA is part of the problem. By financially supporting those countries they are, in fact, helping those countries perpetuate those crimes.

Anybody watch that John Oliver episode about FIFA. Wonder if his show had anything to do with this crackdown by raising awareness of how corrupt FIFA is.

lol, so true. These soccer players should get a career in movies

So, Blatter won the presidency, again.

Holy moly, it's like they have no shame.

His power base is in Africa and Asia, which he has donated a lot of money to upgrade sports infrastructure. They don't care what goes on in as long as the $$$ keeps flowing.

Hell, some clubs pay him to get involved in local federations and stomp other clubs over, with complete disregard to the federation's jurisdiction.

Fucking hate weak-ass corrupt AFC. So much BS here. If it was in Europe, FIFA wouldn't even dare got involved in Liga or Premier league affairs. Just imagine walking up to an established league and redefining its foundation history, giving a club a royal decree (THEY LITERALLY DID THIS), and omitting championships won by other clubs, while acknowledging friendly tournaments for the others. They caused so much dichotomy and hooliganism in our good sport (we were the best league in AFC, now we're the second best), I'll never forgive those corrupt bastards.

Although I have to admit, some of these are lulzy.

About time. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if this were just a jab at Russia by the US for hosting the next WC.

Arrest EA for including Women's Football.

Oh my God! You're so right! You're comment trully enlighted me!

How could I ever be so foolish? How could I never realise billions of people in the world were so wrong!

Even if this is true is it really a bad thing? Sure you still have the corrupt people here that tried to pay bribes, but at least you're getting rid of the corrupt official at FIFA for taking bribes. Better to get only one party than none.

It's the right thing for the wrong reasons. If anything just goes to show the DOJ is corrupt and only doing this because of those lobbied interests that compel it to.

I wouldn't be surprised if all sports had some sort of corruption tied to them. Money talks...

http://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2015/jun/01/jack-warner-fall-spoof-onion-satirical-website

omg lol

Okay I can't figure this out, why is this FBI's concern? Fifa is located in Switzerland, and it's an international organization, what's US got to do with it? Who's given them the right to raid an organization which is located OUTSIDE the American soil ?

1. FBI is investigating CONCACAF representatives and everyone arrested thus far is American; the Swiss are doing their own investigation into the bidding process for WC 2018 and 2022.
2. The raid was conducted by joint Swiss & US officials. The Swiss have given them the right.

You're not very smart? You are slow on the uptake? You give people too much credit? You lack a sense of humour?

There are many possibilities for why you are so foolish.

No and no

The US are involved because American Banks were used for money laundering etc by those arrested

@dagxton: Yes and everyone arrested is an American citizen who is involved with CONCACAF and CONMEBOL the subsection of FIFA that deals with North America and South America respectively. They took a lot of bribes to lockup lucrative sports contracts and took kickbacks. I don't know what you're arguing exactly.

@Aljosa23: He asked why were the FBI involved, and it had nothing to do with the reasons you mentioned. The FBI are involved solely for the reason that the members of FIFA were using American Banks for their money laundering. The things you mentioned are a completely seperate issue and had nothing to do with the question as his question was how could they arrest them on the basis that the US had no control of FIFA since it is based in the Switzerland, which is true

Dude, it's in the article lol.

"These individuals and organizations engaged in bribery to decide who would televise games, where the games would be held, and who would run the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide,” said Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who supervised the investigation from its earliest stages, when she was the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “They did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament.”

"Though many of the charges revolve around activities that occurred abroad, Ms. Lynch said she never had qualms about bringing charges in the United States. United States law allows for extradition and prosecution of foreign nationals under a number of statutes, and court documents say that the activity affected interstate and foreign commerce, and took place in part in New York’s Eastern District."

The FBI was always investigating it, charging them by using American banks is only the mechanism for which they brought the charges to the US.

Serves em right

Then how come I was the one who actually answered the question. What you have quoted here was the answer to his question, but their was no mention of it from you until I pulled you up on it.

What you said was that the FBI was able to charge FIFA members because they arrested members of CONCECAF who were American and were allowed to by Switzerland, which had nothing to do with it. Dont try and claim that that is what you meant when you never mentioned it in the first place

Off-topic

Indio where da faq have you been? It's been a hundred years since I last saw you. Since anyone saw you!

Guys, I found him, over here!

More proof that soccor is a crap sport.

Heh, was busy with work lol. Great to hear from you Erfan :)

Agreed, I'm definitely more of a basketball person. :P

So Blatter just quitted lol.

that guy be trolling