A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

With all this heat that's already on him (that still isn't going to go away anytime soon), the smartest thing for him to do is to stay quiet and get the hell out of the way.

I'm not entirely sure what kind influence Blatter can have on naming a successor at this point without the rest of the world taking notice.

edited 2nd Jun '15 10:28:12 AM by SeanMurrayI

Jack Warner was responsible for the 2002 World Cup referees. Anyone surprised?

From 4 years ago.

edited 2nd Jun '15 11:28:32 AM by AnotherGuy

Blatter himself is now under investigation.

... Surprise?

Agreed. He might yet face criminal action himself, too. It's not so simple as quietly leaving the position, especially when he worked so damn hard to get re-elected less than a week ago and stood defiant even in the face of the action against him.

Blatter might truly be fucked this time.

That's been reported for over a week (at least) before the arrests in Zurich.

Following an ESPN exposé report on May 15th, Blatter even publicly stated the following day that he wasn't avoiding travel to the United States in light of the investigation (Although, I'm sure he has different plans now).

edited 2nd Jun '15 2:17:56 PM by SeanMurrayI

Should be interesting to see what happens next for the crackdowns on FIFA. Still, I am cautiously optimistic from hearing the news that the Fat Swiss Bastard is finally resigning from FIFA and I hope more officials pay for their damage to the beautiful game. What do you predict will happen next?

Ever hear of Budd Dwyer?

Honestly, what is there to say other than the fallout from all of this is nuclear? And like nuclear fallout, anyone this touches is poisoned and rendered impotent.

I'd anticipate FIFA making the complete Garcia Report public in a bid to show transparency, and, somewhere a little further down the line, Qatar will most certainly lose their World Cup Hosting responsibilities amidst the reshuffling of power, the mounting findings of criminal investigations, and the organizational reforms/replanning that are bound to follow.

edited 2nd Jun '15 11:32:25 PM by SeanMurrayI

FBI has released Chuck Blazer's testimony (with a couple large chunks redacted).

Revelations are still emerging, but it's now understood that he has confessed to having "facilitate[d] the acceptance of a bribe in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup" in 1992.

Huge.

Sepp Blatter's re-election is a victory for democracy.

Wut.

From a quick skim of the article it's a reasonably generic "EHRMAHGAHD AMERICA BAD" hitpeice.

To be fair, RICO is a terrifying piece of judicial overreach that was the consequence of the US government taking a look at the Mafia, leaning over to its law enforcement branch, and going 'yeah, fine, sure, do whatever you want', and under normal circumstances, it being deployed against an international body would be pretty disturbing. It's only because FIFA is so cartoonishly horrible that this is being celebrated rather than condemned, and it's to be hoped that the DOJ will remain smart enough to only deploy it against truly deserving targets like them.

Of course, Blatter's and FIFA's defenders who are crying about America "policing the world" repeatedly neglect to mention that the United States' entire investigation stems from their case against American Chuck Blazer for tax evasion and racketeering and simply followed the money trail up to FIFA.

Much of the US investigation is about uncovering corruption in CONCACAF, anyway. The most damning charges to date surround how CONCACAF members also serving on the FIFA Executive Committee (Blazer and Jack Warner, in particular) accepted bribes and kickbacks in exchange for votes for World Cup host nations, as well as broadcasting and advertising rights to the 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cups.

The United States was either a host or co-host of every one of those tournaments. If this whole investigation is presumably a US plot just to make Russia, Qatar, and African nations look bad, they're not doing a particularly good job of that so far.

edited 3rd Jun '15 4:03:17 PM by SeanMurrayI

I'm inclined to call The End Justifies the Means on the investigation - say what you will about the motivations for it, the corruption is massive and needs to be stopped. Many workers have died in Qatar working on the stadia for the world cup and those are lives that wouldn't have been lost had they not stolen the competition.

Essentially this corruption has indirectly led to deaths, if you're willing to stretch causality far enough to include such people. And that's pretty fucking horrific.

While Sepp Blatter sleeps, Jack Warner teases that he's prepared to spill ALL the beans.

We'll have to wait and see what sort of evidence Warner is holding onto, but if his behavior has been any indication so far, he's not willing to be anybody's fall guy. If he can drag anyone down with him, that's exactly what he's gonna do (at least, so long as a PMC hit squad doesn't take him out first...)

And in Warner's own words...

News:

• Real Madrid officially announce Rafa Benitez as their next manager. I have no doubt that he'll bring them success, but it's stupid how little it takes for a manager to get axed at Real. It's not as if Ancelotti wasn't doing OK...

• Liverpool have signed James Milner. If he's their replacement for Gerrard they certainly could've done a lot worse. Milner is experienced and hard working, but his probably greatest asset is his versatility. I could see him evolving into a box-to-box midfielder with an emphasis on the defensive aspect of that duty as he ages but currently he's still primarily a winger, and a very good one at that. I can sort of understand why City would let him go - he's not getting any younger and City already have too many older players - but his nationality is an asset City will miss on top of everything he does on the field. Good buy for Liverpool, but City will need a young British player to replace him.

• Finally, rumours have it that Pirlo will move to New York City FC. A club that already boasts David Villa and Frank Lampard shouldn't need more superstars to bring the prestige of a huge haul of trophies throughout their slowly dying careers but obviously Pirlo is still a brilliant player and despite his age may very well prove the best player in that league for a couple of seasons to come if this transfer is real. He must be a designated player, though, which raises the question of how City can stay within the wage gap with all these expensive stars in their roster.

This must be the club with the largest and most impressive accumulate trophy haul among its players before the club's first full season.

So Manchester City, then?

Pfft, after Lampard's contract fiasco, NYCFC quickly gained the "prestige" of a farm team for Man City to pull players from and bolster their own squad, as needed. To date, Lampard has yet to play for the new side, and the club is currently dead last in the MLS Eastern Conference standings (even trailing a club with four more games in hand) with the lowest points total of the entire league, on the back of 1 win, 7 losses, and 5 ties.

edited 4th Jun '15 11:01:07 AM by SeanMurrayI

The Advertising Standards Agency ordered Championship side Charlton Athletic to take down an ad that showed a man and his girlfriend having sex on the pitch. Before the club released the full ad (which you can watch here), a Vine featuring the couple was leaked and hit over 8 million loops. Well... that's one way to promote your stadium for events. Not sure how I would feel if Spurs did the same thing to promote White Hart Lane though.

edited 4th Jun '15 6:45:15 PM by sanfranman91

I doubt that - Qatar is hardly a place where building projects are few - some sheikh or other is always generally building some grandiose ode to his dick at some point or other. It's a reason many migrant workers - including Indians - tend to go there (before they're trapped) - the work is regular and the pay is (in theory) good (before it becomes slavery).

I'm hearing a lot of AMERICA BAADD when it comes to FIFA now, considering that India could also possibly lose the 2017 U17 World Cup (hardly lucrative, but a start) if some evidence of bribery is found. The issue is, whether or not the Sochi Olympics were a disaster seems to depend on who is reporting it, so I don't know what kind of precedent it sets for the WC. I don't like Putin, but it does seem awfully convenient to investigate FIFA when the next World Cup is in Russia.

Also, Genoa qualified for Europe for the first time in five years, but could not get their EL license at the time, so their EL spot went to... city rivals Sampdoria.

:(

I like Genoa's goalkeeper - Mattia Perin is considered to be the up-and-coming Buffon and he's pretty good from what I've seen.

It should be noted that Qatar's own response to the estimated 1,200 worker deaths since they won their hosting bid is that not all of those deaths are related to building World Cup infrastructure... which is still a pretty damning admission that there's a hell of a lot of shit going on in Qatar, anyway.

As I said earlier, the United States' interests in this began with an investigation into the tax evasion activities of an American citizen who happened to be serving on FIFA's Executive Committee.

Everything that the US has been investigating and all the criminal charges that they've managed to levy are directly related to the activities of ranking members of CONCACAF (Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner, principally) who were unlawfully channeling money through US banks, transferring it to themselves and other associates in the Americas, and doling out kickbacks and other privileges in exchange.

The United States' only interest in investigating Russia and Qatar bids is to determine if there's any evidence of activity connected to the same scheme outlined above (The already indicted Chuck Blazer, for instance, has publicly admitted to the press in 2011 that he voted for Russia as host in 2018, and knowing that he's already admitted to and provided evidence of having his vote bought by bid teams for two previous World Cups, it's fair to investigate if there's tangible proof he made deals over other votes, such as this one).

There's not much that the US Justice Department themselves can do to press charges without a link to an American bank or citizen being uncovered. Even if they do find other evidence of criminal behavior without that connection, at best, they may just pass those findings on to the Swiss investigation or another relevant nation to do with as they please.

The more evidence of criminality in FIFA that's exposed, the more it is going to require the work of many separate investigations from just as many individual nations to press criminal charges. The US can't be expected to clean up any more than what it can uncover in its own backyard.

Even further out of any political body's hands, only FIFA itself can ultimately make the call to change a World Cup venue. The pressure from an international community calling for FIFA to clean their act in the light of all that is now emerging will certainly help force their hand, though.

edited 5th Jun '15 12:04:05 AM by SeanMurrayI

"Real Madrid officially announce Rafa Benitez as their next manager. I have no doubt that he'll bring them success, but it's stupid how little it takes for a manager to get axed at Real. It's not as if Ancelotti wasn't doing OK..."

Sad, but true. You can only have an enduring project when you give it time. I feel like the club is making the same mistake they did with Del Bosque. We'll see what happens now...

The most likely scenario is that Benitez will win something in his first season or two but if he goes 2 years without winning either the Champions League or La Liga he'll get sacked. It's a stupid way to run a club but there you go.

And, holy shit, Jurgen Klinsmen's US national side just beat a Netherlands side looking to warm up for Euro 2016 qualifiers 4-3, on a pair of goals in the 89th and 90th minutes.

Well done, the US and Klinsmann. Pity this didn't happen before (let alone during) a major tournament for the US - would've been even better.

What are you talking about? This IS a World Cup going on RIGHT NOW as everyone already is aware of. We just won the Final.

How did I forget?