Short version, because this a soccer scandal: FIFA is the Grand Poobah of soccer. They just indicted a remarkable bunch of higher-ups in it for endemic corruption, bribery, and general chicanery over World Cup bids. This is genuinely a Big Deal for pretty much the rest of the world, not least because FIFA’s been smelling for decades now.
But now to the important bit: which is to say, its effect on American domestic politics. I’d like to make it clear that I was joking this morning on Twitter by speculating on FIFA’s relationship with the Clinton Foundation; I didn’t really expect to have that confirmed. Silly, silly me. I should have known better, really. Reality is always going to win these things:
Involvement with the embattled body extends beyond the foundation to Bill Clinton himself. The former president was an honorary chairman of the bid committee put together to promote the United States as a possible host nation for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.
When the U.S. lost the 2022 bid to Qatar, Clinton was rumored to be so upset he shattered a mirror.
But apparently Qatar tried to make it up to him.
Fifty to one hundred thousand from FIFA to the Clinton Foundation directly; two hundred and fifty to five hundred thousand from the Qatar 2022 World Cup committee; and one to five million from Qatar itself. Yeah, I think that we’re all in the wrong business, too. And all of this over soccer, too. A game than most Americans care about only when one of our teams has made it past the first stage*…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: And then there is Qatar’s human rights record. The phrase ‘they don’t really have many’ comes to mind…
*Yes, yes, yes: I understand that many people like soccer, and that they are upset that it has a poor reputation in our culture. But that does not detract from my point that this is still an odd scandal to be splashed over the Clintons. Or at least an unexpected one.
… it’s a *great* scandal, Moe.
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Look, the loonier elements of the American Left hate the metric-football-ambivalent cultural elements, but *in the past* have substituted European pro-metric-football elements .. see Obama’s march of conquest in Berlin.
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Now? The Euros – at least the pro-metric-football ones, which should be *most* – will be at least *aware* that Clintons stink on ice.
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The cognitive dissonance may be somewhat esoteric, but .. tasty.
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Mew
Of course, the actual reason why the Euros are trying so hard to come up with something that sticks to get the 2022 World Cup moved is because the big European pro leagues (which is where 90% of the money in metric football is) want nothing to do with a winter World Cup (or playing outdoors in Qatar in summer). They couldn’t care less about the corruption and human rights violations.
Wow, the Clintons really made a lot of enemies during their ruthless climb to the top and exploitation of that power….and isn’t it a shame that it’s coming back to haunt them now? I wonder who (what’s the plural form of “who” , here?) is doing the hatchet job on hillary?
I can imagine the DOJ getting involved simply because we didn’t get the World Cup. But it would be interesting if the timing or the emphasis is aimed at the Clintons.
We probably will never know.
Some people actually like soccer.
Some people like stamp collecting. And some people really, really like feet.
I’d put soccer somewhere between those.
1) The only shocking thing in this is that they somehow failed to charge Sepp Blatter, who swims in graft.
2) The IOC is next on the hit list. And anyone who thinks this will be LESS amusing for them? hehe
3) Oh, and IRS accusing ANYONE of corruption. Whelp, I guess they’d know it when they see it. Wonder if FIFA can say they lost the emails?
corruption in Europe makes the worst of the US look tame. Corruption in Asia and Africa is on levels that you wonder how anything gets done at all.
There is a kleptocracy, mostly Euro heretofore but increasingly Mideast and Asian, who believes that corruption is the normal order of things, that it’s their right to line their pockets if someone’s willing to pay.
Soccer, Bernie and his bunch in Formula 1, etc.
Let us remember too how the Saudis made the British eat their fraud laws and then down the resulting excrement for good measure over military sales a few years back.