Tag: FIFA

Doug Casey on the Real FIFA Scandal

Doug Casey on the Real FIFA Scandal

By Doug Casey

Recently, high-ranking officials at FIFA, the world’s governing soccer (aka “football”) body, were charged with corruption and fraud. The US’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is deeply involved in the case. Doug Casey weighs in on the real scandal… the one you’re not reading in mass media.

The truth be known, I really don’t give a damn about soccer. Nor do most Americans.

Indeed, until recently, all that most Americans knew about “football” was that Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey, to display a great physique, after she scored the winning goal for the US in the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup playoff against China.

However, “football”, as it’s known to the 6.7 billion non-Americans on the planet, is revered by the rest of the world as a secular religion.

But now football, and FIFA, the sport’s governing body, is in the news because of an alleged corruption scandal. Let’s not discuss the details of who was bribing whom, and where all the money went, for two reasons.

First, that’s all over the Internet, and you don’t need me to repeat it here.

Second, and much more important, it’s really none of our business. Despite the fact that the FBI has taken it upon itself to prosecute at least 14 FIFA officials for corruption.

Why is it none of our business? Because FIFA is a Swiss association that’s been around over 100 years. All of its officers and directors are non-US persons. And about 99% of its players, officials, and spectators are non-American.

But that doesn’t matter. The FBI has decided to prosecute FIFA’s officials for corruption, and is successfully moving to have them all extradited to the US for trial.

Continue reading “Doug Casey on the Real FIFA Scandal”

Washington Politicizes Football

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

Washington’s attack on world soccer is following the script of Washington’s attack on the Russian-hosted Sochi Olympics. The difference is that Washington couldn’t stop the Olympics from being held in Sochi, and was limited to scaring off westerners with lies and propaganda. In the current scandal orchestrated by Washington, Washington intends to use its takeover of FIFA to renege on FIFA’s decision that Russia host the next World Cup.

This is part of Washington’s agenda of isolating Russia from the World.

This Washington-orchestrated scandal stinks to high heaven. It seems obvious that the FIFA officials have been arrested for political reasons and that the recently overwhelmingly-reelected FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, was forced to resign by Washington’s threats to indict him as well. This can happen because Washington no longer is subject to the rule of law. In Washington’s hands, law is a weapon that is used against everyone, every organization, and every country that takes a position independent of Washington.

This clears the deck for Washington and its British lapdog to take over FIFA, which henceforth will be used to reward countries that comply with Washington’s foreign policy and to punish those who pursue an independent foreign policy.

Continue reading “Washington Politicizes Football”

THE REAL REASON FOR THE FIFA ARRESTS

Most Americans are completely unaware of FIFA or what it does, and only a bit more aware of the World Cup and non-US football. Unless they are school age children perhaps, the parents of same, or recent immigrants from Europe and South America.

The official reason for the US to proceed with prosecutions of FIFA this week, after a 24 year investigation, is that the payoff schemes involved some of the Wall Street Banks. Since it is unlikely that there will be any action against these same Banks, one wonders as to the reason and the timing for this.

This week FIFA was expected to sanction Israel on Wednesday for their truly terrible treatment of Palestinian football clubs. And the US was perturbed that Qatar was chosen as the 2022 World Cup host, despite their awful human rights record, and record donations to the Clinton Fund, and loyalty to the US ambitions in the Mideast. And finally, FIFA dared to award the 2018 World Cup to Moscow.

Have you noticed that this FIFA prosecution, which so few understand and care about in the States, is getting so much more media coverage than the latest massive thefts by the Banks in wholesale rigging in the forex markets, for which no one is being prosecuted and no serious reforms are being undertaken? There are risks in standing in any way against the will of an empire.

And besides, FIFA is THEIR scandal, and it serves to distract from OUR scandals. 

Via Jesse


McCain Urges Military Strikes Against FIFA

Guest Post by Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Calling the Obama Administration’s actions against the soccer organization “weak and ineffective,” Senator John McCain on Thursday proposed military action to “dismantle and destroy FIFA once and for all.”

“These are people who only understand one thing: force,” McCain said on the floor of the United States Senate. “We must make FIFA taste the vengeful might and fury of the United States military.”

McCain said that he was “completely unimpressed” by the Department of Justice’s arrests of several top FIFA lieutenants this week, calling the action “the kind of Band-Aid solution that this Administration, sadly, has become famous for.”

“Rounding up a few flunkies in a hotel is meaningless when the leader of FIFA remains at large,” he said. “I will follow Sepp Blatter to the gates of Hell.”

McCain requested a four-billion-dollar aid package for moderate elements within global soccer, and said that the United States should be prepared to put boots on the ground in Switzerland.

Calling the use of force against FIFA “long overdue,” he placed the blame for the group’s alarming growth squarely on the shoulders of the White House. “Barack Obama created FIFA,” he said.