By Tony Attwood
What would you do if you were running an organisation that was wholly and utterly corrupt at every level, but which was very much in the public gaze?
Of course you might have a few clever plans up your sleeve, but I suspect one of your main activities would be the replacement of anyone in the organisation who was likely to spill the beans, with someone who knew little, would follow the party line and would stick the money in their back pocket when it slipped into their hands. Preferably someone who didn’t speak English or French, since these are the language that most Fifa legal documents are written in.
It is this sort of behaviour that investigators look for when evaluating corrupt organisations, along with a lack of transparancy and the manipulation of rules to their own benefit.
In the latter case Fifa is on its own, because if a government interferes with a national footballing body (for example by asking, “what on earth are you doing, dealing with the most corrupt international organisation in the history of the planet?”) that country is expelled from Fifa. Cue uprising by unhappy natives and broadcasters, and the government backs down.
And in the case of having experts who are removed if they start asking awkward questions Fifa is top of the tree as well. We have seen this with all the corruption investigators, as the Ethics Committee members were replaced by members of the inner sanctum, and now we see it with their senior medical figures too. Just in time for Russia to host the world cup.
Latest to go is Professor Jiri Dvorak who after 22 years solid work with Fifa as their chief medical officer turned his attention to Russian football doping. He, and a whole group of other Fifa executives who started looking into exactly what Russia is up to, have all been removed.
As is typical in these cases, the Professor was given no explanation for his sudden dismissal. Nor were the others who had developed an interest in Russian football.
Although this removal happened a while back, we only know about it know because of a critical report on Fifa’s governance published by the Council of Europe.
And here’s a funny thing. According to Fifa the professor, upon his departure, wrote a grand, positive review of Fifa’s work It starts, “FIFA has been a pioneer in sport medicine and I am proud to have been leading this process for more than two decades. We moved from the concept of medicine for football to football for health, putting the health of players in the centre of the football community and using the power of football to promote health awareness in society. Prevention was central to all of the projects which I initiated and performed with my medical colleagues from all around the world…”
In short not a word of criticism.
But now, safely escaped from the Fifa clutches, Dvorak has expressed concern that Fifa has dropped many of the programmes he initiated.
Worse, the Guardian is reporting that, “Dvorak had started to examine the allegations contained in Professor Richard McLaren’s landmark report for the World Anti-Doping Agency in July 2016, which first exposed the vast Russian doping of athletes and systematic cover-ups at the Moscow laboratory. That report included evidence that 11 footballers were among the athletes doping and alleged Russia’s programme was orchestrated before the 2012 London Olympics and 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi under the supervision of the ministry of sport itself. The minister then was Vitaly Mutko, now a Russian deputy prime minister, who remains the president of the Russian football association and chair of the organising committee for next year’s Fifa World Cup in Russia.”
Hmmm. This is damningly pathetic and nauseating as corruption in Fifa under the watch of Infantino is looking to be more entrenched than Ever before. Even more than corrupt when Sepp Blatter was at the helm of affairs at the corrupt Fifa body.
But will this corruption that appears to be unlimited at Fifa headquarters be allowed to continue unabated? Even when the US FBI intervened and attempted to halt it, yet it continues to strive and getting stronger by the day with member countries appearing to either have condoned it or lacking the moral will to stop corruption from reigning at Fifa by taking the necessary action that will kill corruption at Fifa and prevent it from resurfacing in future.
Since the Swiss security authorities looked to lacked the ethical will to stop Infantino from continuing with corruption in Fifa after the FBI had stop Sepp Blatter corruption regime at Fifa, I think it might be wise will step in again and come to the rescue by arresting this Infantino of a corrupt man and his corrupt clique at Fifa headquarters. But this time be more decisive and ruthless in the action they’ll take not leaving any loopholes behind which could be exploited later to stage a comeback of the status quo under a different a guise of corrupt of people emerging as Fifa executives again.
By the way, does Fifa ethics committee has an integrity backgrounds check department that first run the moral and financial sincerity checks on the person who wants to stand for Fifa elective post including that of it’s president? If Fifa ethics committee has such integrity check department and runs it to pass or nullify candidate standing in Fifa election, how come then Infantino passed these integrity checks and became elected the president of Fifa?
Was Uefa an accomplice that saw Infantino emerged as Fifa president by rejecting the candidature of the Jordanian, Prince Alli on racial ground. Who if Uefa had backed and he emerged as Fifa president, the possibility is Prince Alli may have truly reformed Fifa and saves the Fifa from this persistent corruption allegations.
Hmmm. This is damningly pathetic and nauseating as corruption in Fifa under the watch of Infantino is looking to be more entrenched than Ever before. Even more than corrupt when Sepp Blatter was at the helm of affairs at the corrupt Fifa body.
But will this corruption that appears to be unlimited at Fifa headquarters be allowed to continue unabated? Even when the US FBI intervened and attempted to halt it, yet it continues to strive and getting stronger by the day with member countries appearing to either have condoned it or lacking the moral will to stop corruption from reigning at Fifa by taking the necessary action that will kill corruption at Fifa and prevent it from resurfacing in future.
Since the Swiss security authorities looked to lacked the ethical will to stop Infantino from continuing with corruption in Fifa after the FBI had stop Sepp Blatter corruption regime at Fifa, I think it might be wise if the FBI will step in again and come to the rescue by arresting this Infantino of a corrupt man and his corrupt clique at Fifa headquarters. But this time be more decisive and ruthless in the action they’ll take not leaving any loopholes behind which could be exploited later to stage a comeback of the status quo under a different guise of corrupt people emerging as Fifa executives again.
By the way, does Fifa ethics committee has an integrity backgrounds check department that first run the moral and financial sincerity checks on the person who wants to stand for Fifa elective post including that of it’s president? If Fifa ethics committee has such integrity check department and runs it to pass or nullify candidate standing in Fifa election, how come then Infantino passed these integrity checks and became elected the president of Fifa?
Was Uefa an accomplice that saw Infantino emerged as Fifa president by rejecting the candidature of the Jordanian, Prince Alli on racial ground. Who if Uefa had backed and he emerged as Fifa president, the possibility is Prince Alli may have truly reformed Fifa and saves the it from this persistent corruption allegations.
Sorry, I did some corrections and repost.
‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’
As noted offline, this is a shocking report: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/dec/21/our-sin-take-task-fifa-seriously