Your ignorance about FIFA is clearly evident.
May 29, 2015
Imperial NYT: Each FIFA Member One Secret Vote Is "Strange Electoral Math"The New York Times was tipped off about last weeks U.S. induced Swiss police raid on FIFA functionaries in Geneva. It seems to hold some grudge against the football association maybe because the U.S. lost its bid for the world-championship 2022 to Qatar.
It is obvious that the U.S. is trying to install its own puppet on top of FIFA. Their candidate is a member of the corrupt family of Jordanian king. It is not that the U.S. is against corruption. Corruption is just fine as long as it works in its interest. But FIFA rules make it difficult to get the U.S. its will.
The reason, says the New York Times, is "the strange electoral math of FIFA".
So what is strange with that math? The members of FIFA are the national football associations. Each gets one vote. The voting is secret.
Imagine that. Every member has an equal vote and can vote as it likes without any real way to pressure it. That's strange? From the NYT piece:
Mr. Blatter is widely expected to win a fifth term on Friday — in a vote only miles from the luxury hotel where Wednesday’s arrests took place — in part because of FIFA’s electoral math. The FIFA president is elected by a one-vote-per-country poll of its 209 member federations, making the many smaller countries who support Mr. Blatter an effective counterweight to his unpopularity elsewhere, most notably in Europe.One country one vote is indeed strange math. Imagine the UN would be run this way. How would the U.S. and other Security Council members get their will if every country had a real vote?
There is no proposal in the NYT piece on how to change that strange math. How would the U.S. like to have the votes arranged? Countries ranked by population numbers? China, India, Nigeria, Brazil would certainly love that arrangement. But their vote would likely not go the way the U.S. wants it. Countries ranked by football popularity or historic football success? Portugal or some other small country might then have the greatest weight. The U.S. vote would be ranked somewhere at the end of the list.
No. There is no better way to run FIFA than the way it is run today. A World Championship is a billion dollar business. The money collected by FIFA through TV licenses, advertisement and merchandizing is flowing back to the national soccer federations. They are supposed to use it to support and promote the sport. Unfortunately some corruption is inevitably involved in such a huge and complex business. The world will have to live with that. The alternative is to relinquish control over football to some totally unaccountable likely U.S. controlled conglomerate. That would be the end of the game.
I suggested that the U.S. assault on FIFA for corruption cases going back to the early 1990s comes now only because FIFA will today vote on a Palestinian proposal to eject Israel for impeding Palestinian football. Israel has conceded that it is guilty by offering concessions in bid ?to avert vote to oust it from FIFA. But those concessions are likely not enough:
The source said FIFA president Sepp Blatter welcomed Israel’s proposal but stressed it would need [chairman of the Palestinian Football Association] Rajoub’s consent before removing the vote on banning Israel from FIFA’s slate.The source said Rajoub acceded, but added another demand – that FIFA ask UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon to issue a decision within three months on whether the five Israeli teams based in West Bank settlements were within Israeli territory.
FIFA regulations stipulate that teams not located within Israeli territory require the Palestinians’ consent to participate in Israeli leagues. Since the UN does not recognize the West Bank as part of Israel, the decision would de facto force Israel’s soccer federation to expel these teams from the league or run the risk of breaking FIFA’s rules.
The Palestinians should stick to this demand. Israel, like apartheid South Africa, should be kicked out of FIFA. There must be no tolerance for racism and occupation in the world's most beloved sport.
moonofalabama.org
which explains why the US(Obama's DOJ) is letting the bribers themselves skate:
Published on
Thursday, May 28, 2015
by
Common Dreams
As DOJ Cracks Down on FIFA, Are Powerful Multinationals Being Shielded from Public Exposure?
Although not named in federal indictment, Nike is believed to be one of the companies implicated in the bribery and racketeering scandal
by
Sarah Lazare, staff writer
7 Comments
Although it is not clear why, top officials of Nike, widely suspected to be implicated in the scandal, appear to have so far dodged the public outings and arrests faced by FIFA's leadership. Photo depicts Nike Inc.'s CEO Mark Parker. (Photo: Reuters)
As the U.S. Department of Justice, in concert with European officials, launches a much-publicized crackdown on FIFA corruption, bribery, and racketeering, the powerful multinational corporation Nike—widely believed to be implicated in the scandal—has been largely shielded from the same public outing.
The discrepancy adds to suspicions that, despite the "tough-on-white-collar-crime" rhetoric of the DOJ, the agency is in fact far more willing to aggressively go after the Zurich-headquartered soccer enterprise and smaller companies than powerful multinationals and financial institutions.
The DOJ announced on Wednesday that it is levying charges against 9 FIFA officials and 5 corporate executives, and Swiss authorities raided FIFA's headquarters and arrested officials pending their extradition to the United States.
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch emphasized the DOJ's "get tough" attitude in statementsWednesday: "Today’s action makes clear that this Department of Justice intends to end any such corrupt practices, to root out misconduct, and to bring wrongdoers to justice – and we look forward to continuing to work with other countries in this effort."
Although it is not clear why, the DOJ appears not to be subjecting some of the corporations involved in the scandal to the same level of public exposure as the FIFA officials.
The indictment directly references a "a major U.S. sportswear company" allegedly involved in bribery related to the Brazilian national soccer team. However, this "major U.S. sportswear company" was left unnamed.
As Washington Post writer Drew Harwell spells out, "Although investigators will not name the company, the indictment says the sportswear firm signed a 10-year, $160 million sponsorship deal with the Brazilian team in 1996, closely matching Nike’s clothes, shoes and equipment deal with the team that year."
The New York Times also pointed to Nike as the likely culprit, running the headlineWednesday: "Nike Says It's Cooperating With Authorities in FIFA Probe."
However, no high-profile raids of Nike's Oregon headquarters, or arrests of their high-ranking officials, have been reported since Wednesday's announcement. Furthermore, Nike is not named anywhere in the DOJ's indictment announcement.
As Common Dreams noted Wednesday, many are already raising questions about why the DOJ has failed to target bankers, politicians, and one-percenters in the United States.
This does not, however, mean that FIFA's hands are clean. The soccer enterprise, along with the companies and governments it does business with, faces a host of charges, including involvement in worker abuse, modern-day slavery, prison labor, mass displacement of poor and Indigenous peoples, and severe environmental irresponsibility.
In a statement released Thursday, Minky Worden, director of global initiatives for Human Rights Watch, denounced the "crises—including human rights abuses and corruption—that are undermining the foundations of football's management." |
