Well, "Americans" may not have embraced soccer yet, but the FBI sure is a lot more interested than they used to be.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
We used to laugh at the Yanks about "Soccer"...Now theyare saving our game!
Well played....
Among those charged are Jeffery Webb, the current President of CONCACAF; and Jack Warner, previous President of the confederation and former candidate for FIFA leadership.According to reports in both the Wall Street Journal ($)and New York Times, a number of FIFA officials were just arrested in Zurich, Switzerland, and according to the Times are expected to be extradited to the United States where they will face charges of “wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.” The Times reports that the arrests are being made by Swiss authorities “at the request of the United States Justice Department.” At least ten FIFA officials are under indictment.
FIFA officials are currently arriving in Zurich for FIFA’s annual congress, which begins tomorrow. On Friday they will vote in FIFA’s presidential election, where FIFA president Sepp Blatter is expected to win his fifth four-year term, as he has the support of almost every non-European football federation. His only competition is Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, as former Real Madrid star Luis Figo, as well as Royal Dutch Football Association chairman Michael van Praag, dropped out of the election a week ago, with Figo saying, “This process is anything but an election. This process is a plebiscite for the delivery of absolute power to one man - something I refuse to go along with.”
Article continues here: deadspin.com
and here: theguardian.com
and here: time.com
Did the USA , of all countries, just fix soccer? - C. Ronaldo, May 27th commenting on the FBI-led investigations into fraud and corruption throughout FIFA.
Sepp Blatter either needs to be fired or resign.
^innocent until proven guilty. All that's happened are arrests.
This will help soccer in Murica.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
Federal Agents in Miami raid CONCACAF offices there:
While Swiss police in Zurich arrive at hotel to serve arrest warrants:
And reporters rush to FIFA Headquarters:
Did the USA , of all countries, just fix soccer? - C. Ronaldo, May 27th commenting on the FBI-led investigations into fraud and corruption throughout FIFA.
This means little in the short term, but the guardian's saying the DOJ is investigating the awarding of both the 2018 and 2022 world cups. No one who had much to do, or was any where close enough to blatter, around the time of these events was arrested today. But, the DOJ has about a 95 percent conviction rate. These guys are all going to jail for a long time, and I think they'll be falling in line to rat on guys above them. Blatter's going down for this, eventually.
shocking how everyone knows fifa is corrupt and bladder is the biggest POS on earth, yet nothing was ever done...FIGO was running for head of fifa I believe and said it is way too corrupt and wants to clean it up
this is awesome.
Yep he was running and dropped out because of the corruption. Think about that for a second. A guy who's running on a platform to crub corruption drops out because of how corrupt the process is.
Eventually Blatter will make a misstep or have someone with the smoking gun come out.
Sports management firm Traffic (and a key underwriter of NASL btw) deeply implicated in the DOJ RICO indictments. Aaron Davidson, Traffic Sports USA CEO and NASL chairman, one of those indicted.
On the domestic front that is pretty worrisome as it makes you wonder about how the league will move forward, is another breakaway in the cards, especially if the MLS backed USL does put on a full court press for D2 status. Why if I am a successful business man for example Bob Young would I ever want to get involved with such a entity ala NASL.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
I almost drove off the road when I heard this on the news.
a ha ha heh he hoo.. ha
It really is nuts...but with 7 people arrested, more to come...You just know these POS will rat on one another soon enough to save their butts
FIFA needs to be either abolished or completed gutted and rebuilt. Time to get the crap out of the game, would love to see the top leagues in the world simply say we will not send our players to anymore tournaments till things change. FIFA is not needed, let the top leagues run the tournaments
it would be funny if the CSA was implicated and we finally got reform... But I'm guessing they are just as bad at corruption as they are at developing the game in this country.
Press conference coming up now Sportsnet.ca and world
Warner, Marin and Leoz are no strangers to corruption allegations, that's for sure.Jeffrey Webb (Cayman Islands) - President of CONCACAF, member of FIFA Executive Committee
Eugenio Figueredo (Uruguay) - President of CONMEBOL, member of FIFA Executive Committee
Jack Warner (Trinida and Tobago) - President of CONCACAF from 1990 to 2011, former FIFA vice-president
Eduardo Li (Costa Rica) - President of the Costa Rican Football Federation, CONCACAF representative to FIFA
Julio Rocha (Nicaragua) - President of the Nicaraguan Football Federation, FIFA development officer
Costas Takkas (Cayman Islands) - Former general secretary of the Cayman Islands Football Association
Rafael Esquivel (Venezuela) - President of the Venezuelan Football Federation since 1988, member of the FIFA disciplinary committee
José Maria Marin (Brazil) - President of the Brazilian Football Confederation from 2012 to 2015, president of the 2014 FIFA World Cup committee
Nicolás Leoz (Paraguay) - President of CONMEBOL from 1986 to 2013
And five sports marketing execs:
Alejandro Burzaco (Argentina) - CEO of Torneos y Competencias, which owns various sports television channels and broadcasted Argentine domestic football matches from 1992 to 2009, and the 2006 World Cup
Aaron Davidson (United States) - President of Traffic Sports USA, which organizes and handles marketing for a variety of CONCACAF soccer events, like World Cup Qualifying and the Gold Cup. Chairman of the Board of the North American Soccer League, the soccer tier below MLS
Hugo Jinkis (Argentina) - President of Full Play, which owns some sort of rights (I am unclear which ones) to hundreds of South American soccer matches
Mariano Jinkis (Argentina) - CEO of Full Play, which owns some sort of rights (I am unclear which ones) to hundreds of South American soccer matches
José Margulies (Unknown) - Margulies is somehow involved with Traffic Sports
There are enough people here, and more to be named, to be able to bring down the house.
And I don't see Leoz or Warner staying loyal to Blatter after the way he turned his back on them.
a ha ha heh he hoo.. ha
Going to be interesting regarding the admissibility of some evidence
... and in case you're new to this, here's a thread detailing a fair bit (though not all) of FIFA shenanigans of the past few years.
You may recognize some of the names by the time it all blows over :
http://forums.redpatchboys.ca/showth...Investigations
a ha ha heh he hoo.. ha
'Bout fuckin' time! Now let's see if anything comes about this and some corrupt lardasses, like Blatter, do some hard time behind bars.
TORONTO FC, 2017 MLS CHAMPIONS!!! (Still the greatest in league history!)
^^Doubt it. A lot of those soccer haters in the States will just point to it and confirm their biases about why soccer sucks and why FIFA is not as clean and pure like other sports organizations. Like the NFL, NBA, and NCAA, just to name a few.
TORONTO FC, 2017 MLS CHAMPIONS!!! (Still the greatest in league history!)