Greater and greater signs of widespread corruption at every level of Fifa and accepted by every country.

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.”

As I am sure you will know the Olympics committee has banned Russia from the Winter Olympics, but Fifa has taken no action against Mutko or Russia.  Meanwhile the Swiss prosecutor Cornel Borbély, had begun to examine Mutko’s role in the scandal when Borbély’s work was scrapped following a call to close it down by Infantino.

In a report that has received hardly any coverage in the UK media, called “Good football governance” written by Anne Brasseur, for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, there is the headline:

TOO LITTLE MONEY HARMS FOOTBALL, TOO MUCH IS KILLING IT
WE NEED TO PREVENT FOOTBALL FROM SELF-DESTRUCTING

Within that report is the comment, “The high number of persons dismissed after the election of Mr Infantino can possibly be explained, at least partially, by the will to remove staff who had been too close to the previous leadership … and maybe also by a certain will of renewal. However, the way in which these changes took place appears somewhat ‘brutal’, as I have heard some of the people define the process.”

It is also noted that none of the people who have been ousted, have undertaken handovers to their successors so as to ensure that vital research is not interrupted or delayed.

This comes on top of a report that says that Fifa’s ethics investigator (María Claudia Rojas) who was brought into the job by Infantino personally does not have skills for job.    The Council of Europe report says that the new investigator from Columbia does not have the necessary experience of conducting criminal or financial investigations to do the job.  And remember this is Fifa so there are a lot of criminal and financial investigations to work on.

The report adds, “her lack of knowledge of English and French is a major obstacle, as almost all documents are in one of these two languages. This is not merely a factor that risks slowing her down in her examination of case files … but it also means – and this is much more problematic – that she is more dependent on the secretariat that assists her and that it is objectively difficult for her to enter into confidential contacts with witnesses or experts.”

And yet, England, and all the other nations, carry on competing and buying TV rights, as if everything is fine.

A bit odd, if you ask me (although by and large nobody does).

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4 Replies to “Greater and greater signs of widespread corruption at every level of Fifa and accepted by every country.”

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

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