FIFA head caught in ‘firing line’ of US neocons (OP-ED)
RT.com
May 27, 2015 17:31
As the US levels charges against seven members of football’s world governing body, and one particularly hawkish US politician is calling for the FIFA head to be ousted, RT interviews observers for their views of the incident.
Seven high-ranking representatives from FIFA, the world football's governing body, were arrested on corruption charges following a raid on a Zurich hotel. The individuals, who allegedly received over $150 million (£97 million) worth of bribes going back to the 1990s, have been indicted on corruption charges in a US probe, the US Department of Justice said.
The arrests come just two days before a vote to re-elect the head of FIFA. Incumbent Sepp Blatter, who is running for a fifth term, wasn’t arrested. FIFA's headquarters in Zurich were also raided and documents seized. Walter De Gregorio, FIFA’s new director of communications & public Affairs, said the events wouldn’t strip Russia and Qatar of hosting upcoming World Cups in 2018 and 2022 respectively.
RT spoke with analysts to discuss whether the timing of the scandal was a coincidence.
According to Neil Clark, a UK-based journalist, “a lot of this [has] to do with the fact that you got all the bigwigs of FIFA at one place in hotels in Switzerland, ahead of Friday’s annual general meeting.”
“In terms of the FBI investigation, which we know has been going for a long time, this was really a perfect opportunity to arrest these people because they were in one place. And that’s a big factor with the timing,” Clark said.
FIFA's communications chief Walter De Gregorio said the president of football’s world governing body, Sepp Blatter is not involved in the scandal. However, US officials said he's not in the clear yet. Blatter, 79, has been the subject of a major media campaign for some time now.
According to investigative journalist Tony Gosling, the timing “is really the dead giveaway.”
“This investigation by the media and by various police authorities has been going on for about a year now and yet just two days before the election there are suddenly suspicions surrounding Sepp Blatter,” he told RT.
FIFA is one of the last remaining institutions in the world not owned and controlled by the West, Gosling said.
“I’m thinking about important institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), people like these who are overseeing the nuclear world. The US angle on all this is a dead giveaway. Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner at FIFA seem to be at the heart of this conspiracy even though the US isn’t really a soccer-playing country…We see them playing American football, a completely different sport, really.”
In Neil Clark’s view, there are several agendas at work here.
“We need to make sure that the awarding of these tournaments is fully transparent, which it hasn’t been. So there are legitimate grounds for concern,” he said. However, he also said there is a political agenda at play here.
“A lot of people didn’t like, for political reasons, the awards to Qatar (the World Cup 2022), and particularly the award to Russia in 2018. So it is completely independent of what’s happening today. For example, we have the US neoconservative Senator John McCain calling for Russia to be stripped of the World Cup. We’ve had the chairman of the Polish football association calling for Russia to be stripped of the World Cup. And the Ukrainian president, too. So there is a political campaign going on for the World Cup to be taken away from Russia or for countries to boycott it, and that’s independent of this latest news. So we’ve got to be aware of the politics too, that certain people didn’t like the awards going to Qatar and Russia in the first place,” Clark said.
McCain called on FIFA to oust Blatter because of “his continued support for Russia.”
According to Neil Clark, the FIFA head is in the firing line for US “neocons, because Mr Blatter went to Moscow not that long ago and said that there was no question of the World Cup being taken away from Russia.”
In the journalist’s opinion, Blatter has become “a hate figure by people whose interests are not really in football, let’s be honest, it’s about Russia bashing and it really riles them that the World Cup is going to be in Russia.”
Bryan MacDonald, journalist and broadcaster, argued the scandal is not aimed at removing World Cup 2018 from Russia; the issue here is Qatar.
“I think that there is an agenda in the West to have Qatar’s World Cup removed from them… Qatar is a small country in the middle of the desert. It’s basically Estonia in the desert. Obviously it’s vastly wealthier but it’s in the desert… It’s not surrounded by soccer-loving nations; it’s difficult to get to. The heat is overbearing there… I think the real agenda here is to get the World Cup moved out of Qatar. That’s what certain people behind the scenes are up to,” he said.
MacDonald suggested McCain’s rhetoric could possibly be explained by him being lobbied.
“I would imagine that what John McCain knows about soccer you can write down on the back of a cigarette packet,” he said. “I would imagine that someone has lobbied John McCain here and McCain is taking lobbyists’ views on board. The lobbyists probably have said it’s a way to annoy Vladimir Putin, or a way to annoy somebody that John McCain doesn’t like. And he has picked up this ball - if you excuse the rugby metaphor - and ran with it.”
Journalist Tony Gosling, commenting on American lawmakers getting involved in the governing of football, said that he would like to see football thrive as sport completely independent of politics.
“But it seems we’ve got a bunch of control freaks in the US, they want to control all these institutions. And this is definitely a torpedo aimed at Blatter for this Friday election,” Gosling said.
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FIFA scandal will not affect 2018 World Cup'- organizing committee head.
RT.com
May 28, 2015 16:00
Russia intends to stage a spectacular and very hospitable World Cup in 2018 and preparation for it is already in full swing, says CEO of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Local Organizing Committee, Alexey Sorokin.
RT: Among those FIFA officials arrested in Zurich, only two had any involvement in the selection process for the 2018 Russia hosted World Cup. But those two didn’t actually vote for Russia. Could you explain who might be interested in that?
Alexey Sorokin: The way we see it and the way we read it in the FIFA press release, first of all the indictment and these apprehensions have nothing to do with the bids, with the voting for host countries of 2018 and 2022. The people who are implicated were not the Executive Committee (ExCo) members at the time of the vote. So they could not possibly have anything to do with the host country selection process. This is a totally separate investigation. We don’t see any involvement or any concern of the World Cup in general.
RT: So the 2018 World Cup will not be in any way affected by this affair?
AS: No, it won’t be affected. There is another investigation that is going on in Switzerland as we lately understood. This investigation has to do with the voting process, with the process of selection of the host countries. But again we have no information about the progress of this investigation. We did cooperate with the last investigation done by [former US attorney Michael] Garcia, we cooperated, submitted all the information. We don’t know how else we can help any investigator who is interested in that.
RT: For fans who are anxious about the outcome of the 2018 World Cup and whether or not it will actually materialize - could you speak to the fears that it may not materialize because of this affair?
AS: Not only could it materialize, it’s materializing as we speak. We are very deep in the preparation process. FIFA is fully satisfied by the course of preparation. We have a very good level of cooperation with the FIFA administration. We don’t know how anything that goes on around the world of football can affect the preparation.
RT: Do you feel the reputational risk of this affair that is unfolding? Do you feel that the 2018 World Cup will be insulated from this reputational risk?
AS: I don’t think so. It’s a classic legal matter, which should be addressed exactly as such. So we should separate the image of the organization… By the way FIFA is participating as an injured side in this investigation. Authorities should treat it as purely legal matter. I don’t know what possible negative consequences it should have for us.
RT: Do you have any fears about the politicization of FIFA and World Football?
AS: FIFA as well as other sport organizations has always claimed that sport is beyond politics. I think we should adhere to this principle and as much as we adhere to that, it serves the benefit of any sport. The ideal situation is that we think about sport, athletes, results and not about politics.
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FIFA fail | Putin accuses US of interference and mixing sport with politics.
IN THE NOW
May 28, 2015
Vladimir Putin has commented on the FIFA scandal, given that Russia's right to host 2018 World Cup is now under fire: “If something did happen, it didn't happen in America, and the US is totally unrelated to this. It is just another attempt to spread its jurisdiction to other countries. This is certainly, and I have no doubt about it, an obvious attempt to prevent Mr Blatter’s re-election as FIFA president. We know his attitude: sport is beyond politics. The U.S. has no right to intervene and mix sport with politics.” You might think that's too harsh and so it sounds. But the reality is that FIFA officials got busted just at the time when the chorus of those who wanted to strip Russia from the Cup had gotten too loud. And Blatter refused to play by their rules. Politicians from the US, Germany and the UK, including David Cameron himself pushed for this.
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McCain Urges Military Strikes Against FIFA
NewYorker.com
(Satire) MAY 28, 2015
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.
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Sepp Blatter re-elected as FIFA president after Prince Ali concedes.
RT
May 29, 2015
Joseph "Sepp" Blatter has won his fifth presidential term after his opponent, Jordan’s Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, withdrew before the voting went into the second round.
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‘Game of politics’: FIFA scandal has nothing to do with corruption or sports.
RT.com
May 30, 2015 04:51
The FIFA scandal has nothing to do with sports or corruption, and has turned into a game of politics full of propaganda and demagogy in geopolitical and strategic interests of the US and its allies in the West, geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser, told RT.
RT: There was widespread condemnation and criticism from some state leaders and then large-corporations with regards to Sepp Blatter’s leadership, but he was still re-elected. Why do the voters prefer him?
Eric Draitser: Well I think there are a number of reasons, but I would just begin by saying that I don’t think any of these reasons have [anything] to do with his competency in running FIFA, nor do they really have to do with anything related to sports.
It is entirely a game of politics. And I think those sport federations, be they in the US, or Western Europe that spoke against Mr. Blatter, I think they mainly spoke against him because of the political line of the countries that they represent. Of course, I think, his grave sin in the eyes of Western players in this equation was a awarding World Cup to Russia, and also to a large extent not shielding Qatar from a lot of the criticism it has received. I think both of these things to a large extend really caused these problems.
Also the timing comes into question here. I mean, just on the eve of the vote to possibly ban Israel from FIFA, all of a sudden you have the United States, Israel's staunchest ally, coming out with indictments, coming out with public knowledge of this investigation into the corruption.
All of this is far too convenient for anybody who does not really believe in coincidences. So I think there is this element of Russia, because part of this of course is a propaganda campaign. We have seen the Western media going after Russia really since the beginning of conflict in Ukraine on all fronts. Just as we saw John McCain earlier this week making wild accusations about FIFA being in bed with Russia. Of course all of this is tied together with this Russia bashing. And I think that needs to be seen in that context, rather than in the context of sports.
RT: British police have opened their own probe into the FIFA corruption arrests. And the UK Prime Minister has said Sepp Blatter should go. Was this an attempt to swing the vote?
ED: Absolutely it is an attempt to swing it. It is an attempt to demonize Mr. Blatter. It is an attempt to demonize all of those forces that were supporting him. And it is interesting that Cameron would make such a statement when under Mr. Cameron’s watch all of those corrupt officials involved in the Libor scandal, all of the corrupt banking officials in the city of London, all of these really wealthy powerful oligarchs who have supported Cameron, all of them have gotten off scot free. None of them are sitting in jail. All of them are clearly guilty of corruption, and yet we don’t hear such words from Mr. Cameron on those issues.
Again this come back to the issue of being politically motivated. The agenda of the UK just as the agenda of the US is to demonize any individual or any country or any politician who dares to stand behind Vladimir Putin, who dares to stand behind Russia or China, or any of the non-Western world. And I think this is reflected in this vote. You see that there is a clear divide between East and West in terms of who voted for Blatter and who voted for Prince Ali.
And again I think it is also interesting that it is Jordanian Prince Ali who gets this backing from the West. Because of course he is well regarded as a western crony, somebody who represents the interests of the US, the UK and Western Europe. And I think this is clearly an unmistakably part of this.
And would also add that while they are talking about corruption, I have not heard any of these people talking about 4,000 workers dying in Qatar since the world cup was awarded to that country in preparation for 2022. That does not seem to be on the table. Qatar is still perfectly in line to have their World Cup in a few years’ time. And so if they really want to talk about cleaning out FIFA, perhaps they should look at the human cost of the cup in a place like Qatar, rather than demonizing Mr. Blatter because he might have the support of Putin or anybody else.
RT: What now then, if it is the case of West against East, well the West lost then, because as they say he is still in charge of FIFA? But what now? What more can be done, because as we know the probe is still ongoing for the people that have been arrested, and there is still questions about Moscow and Qatar as well. How else can Blatter or FIFA be targeted by the West, if we say that much? Sponsorship there are slightly at risk aren't they?
ED: Well to some extent. But look, at the end of the day those sponsorship and corporations they are only interested in one thing, and that is their bottom line. Speaking as an American in a country that is renowned in its lack of interest in international soccer, I can tell you that the world is very much addicted to this sport. The World Cup by far is still the biggest sporting event. Soccer is still internationally regarded as the premier sport. And I don't think that any corporations is really going to blink at being a sponsor for this major, major sport.
So I don't really buy into this notion that international football or soccer is somehow under threat. What I do think is interesting thought is the future of this sport needs to be cleaned up. The leadership certainly needs to be cleaned up. And I don’t think anyone would deny that there is obviously corruption issues involved in this bureaucracy. But that is true of all the sports. Here in the US, you look at the NFL, they had dozens of scandals involving their own corruption, involving cheating and many other things.
So again, they are trying to take a sports issue and a corruption issue and making it into a political and a geopolitical issue. And I think nothing makes it more clearer than John McCain’s statements just the other day about why the World Cup needs to be taken away from Russia. It is purely for propaganda and demagogy, not because it has anything to do with corruption.
So, moving forward, FIFA, sure they can clean themselves up. They need to have new people under Mr. Blatter. They need to have a transition once he decides to go. All these things needs to happen, but for right now the main issue is the way in which this has been politicized for geological and strategic reasons by the US and its allies in the West.
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Blatter ‘shocked’ by US action against FIFA.
RT.com
May 30, 2015 08:47
The newly re-elected leader of FIFA Sepp Blatter has said he’s shocked at the way the US targeted football’s world governing body, adding the arrest of its officials and calls for his resignation is “no coincidence.”
On Friday, 79-year-old Blatter won his fifth presidential term at FIFA after his opponent, Jordan’s Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, withdrew before the voting went into the second round.
In an interview on Saturday with Swiss television
RTS, Blatter also condemned what he called a “hate” campaign waged against him by Europe’s football leaders.
The FIFA chief slammed comments made by the US judiciary on the world football body. "Of course I am shocked. I would never as FIFA president make comments about another organization without being certain of what has happened."
Blatter believes the arrest of seven FIFA officials and calls for resignation from UEFA chief Michel Platini just two days before the election is “no coincidence.”
"There are signs that do not lie: Americans were candidates for the World Cup 2022 and they lost [it]. If Americans have to deal with money or criminal offences which involve northern or South American citizens, they stop them there, but not in Zurich while there's a congress," lamented the freshly re-elected president.
He stressed there are US interests behind the candidacy of his Jordanian rival. "Let us not forget that they are the number one sponsor of the Hashemite Kingdom - so of my opponent. This doesn't feel good."
A massive corruption scandal at FIFA prompted a wave of accusations against Blatter, who was held responsible for what was happening on his watch. On Thursday, the head of UEFA, Michel Platini called for his resignation, saying, "people don't need a president like Blatter."
"It is a hate that comes not just from a person at UEFA, it comes from the UEFA organization that cannot understand that in 1998 I became president," he said in the latest interview.
Asked whether he would forgive Platini for the resignation calls, Blatter said: "I forgive everyone, but I do not forget."
Fourteen FIFA officials and businessmen have been accused by the US of bribery, fraud and money laundering. Several were arrested in a Zurich hotel where they had gathered ahead of Friday's summit. Swiss prosecutors are also investigating the awarding of the World Cups 2018 and 2022 to Russia and Qatar, respectively, to ascertain whether the vote was clean and legal.
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CrossTalk: FIFA Coup?
RT
Jun 5, 2015
The rise and fall of Sepp Blatter or the blood-sport known as Fifa politicking? Fans call football ‘The Beautiful Game’, but behind the scenes it is a ruthless gambit for geopolitical advantage and mega-profits – and corruption. Is this the reason why the FBI is involved? CrossTalking with Bruce Zagaris, Neil Clark, and Sukant Chandan.
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‘Political agenda to have World Cup taken from Russia’
Neil Clark is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. His award winning blog can be found at
www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter
RT.com
June 12, 2015 11:38
EU legislators have adopted a resolution that calls for FIFA President Sepp Blatter to step down immediately, a move that journalist Neil Clark calls political posturing and lacking any sort of democratic due process.
The European resolution, which is non-binding, calls for the dismissal of all corrupt FIFA officials and a review of the football governing body’s decisions over the last decade, including awarding the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. FIFA’s secretary general says no violations have been found in Russia’s bidding process.
RT: Why are EU legislators getting involved in the FIFA controversy if they have no legal sway in the issue?
Neil Clark: This is just political posturing, isn’t it? It’s not an issue for the EU to get involved in; this is FIFA, the world governing body, and they’re playing politics. I think the agenda here, very clearly, is to get Sepp Blatter out now in order to get the World Cup taken away from Russia. If Blatter does stay in till December, then of course it will be more difficult to get the World Cup away from Russia because there simply won’t be enough time. And I think that’s the agenda. We’ve already had one of the Estonian MEPs actually say the World Cup should be taken from Russia.
RT: At the end of the day, will such pronouncements have any real impact on the situation?
NC: No… but it’s going to build up the pressure on Blatter. I think it’s hounding of him now. He’s already said he’s resigning. He won a democratic mandate just 10 days ago. He said he’s stepping down for the good of football, yet he’s still being hounded to step down straight away. Don’t forget, this guy is innocent; nothing yet has come to light to prove that he’s guilty of anything. He hasn’t been charged with anything yet. Whatever happened to due process here? It’s really quite extraordinary that when Russia is concerned, due process goes out the window. No evidence has been put forward that Russia bribed its way to get this World Cup... It’s not a question of being pro-or anti-Russian, it’s a question of being due process.
RT: One Spanish newspaper reported that Qatar is gearing up to host the 2018 World Cup in case it’s taken away from Russia. How plausible is that given that Qatar is under the microscope as well?
NC: Well, every day we are reading something else. There’s definitely a political agenda to get the World Cup away from Russia. I don’t think the Western elites are so concerned about Qatar; they want to take it away from Russia…. But Russia deserves to hold the World Cup; it’s never held [the event] yet. No evidence has yet been produced of wrongdoing, so let’s hold our horses here. The reason for Blatter having these calls to step down immediately is that some Western leaders want to get a more compliant leader of FIFA in place straightaway.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko (L) and FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke attend a news conference in Samara, Russia, June 10, 2015. (Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev)Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko (L) and FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke attend a news conference in Samara, Russia, June 10, 2015. (Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev)
