{"id":21656,"date":"2014-11-15T20:24:27","date_gmt":"2014-11-15T19:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=21656"},"modified":"2014-11-16T05:35:28","modified_gmt":"2014-11-16T04:35:28","slug":"21656","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/21656\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA Keeps Fiefdom for Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0Kavitha Davidson writes: The corruption probe of\u00a0the World Cup bidding process<\/a> may be predictably over, but the controversy surrounding FIFA’s decisions on who should host is<\/span> just getting started.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As expected, the tournament will still take place in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, after\u00a0the 18-month investigation found insufficient evidence of corruption.<\/p>\n

Garcia, a former U.,S. attorney, immediately fired back, accusing Eckert\u00a0of whitewashing his original 430-page report and reporting him to FIFA’s appeals committee.\u00a0“Today’s decision by the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed in the Investigatory Chamber’s report,” Garcia said.<\/p>\n

There’s lots to take issue with here, from the lack of cooperation from several Qatari officials, to Russia’s claim that\u00a0destroying\u00a0all records of the bidding process was standard operating procedure and not a cover-up. But the biggest problem remains the complete lack of independent oversight of one of the largest governing bodies in sports, tasked with investigating itself while having\u00a0little motivation for transparency or the truth.<\/p>\n

FIFA is also too big for its own good. Dozens of corruption scandals in the past decade have done little to ebb the endless profits that come from running the most popular sport in the world.\u00a0FIFA made $2 billion<\/a> in profit from this year’s World Cup in Brazil. And this in spite of endless protests by the local poor who would see not one cent of that money, and the “slave-like” conditions<\/a> faced<\/span> by the migrant workers who built the stadiums.<\/p>\n

It will only get worse come 2022.\u00a0In March, the International Trade Union Confederation estimated that 1,200 migrant workers<\/a> had already died in Qatar. That number is expected to rise to 4,000 by the time the World Cup comes to Doha. Qatar has pledged numerous times to fix its problem with worker exploitation, most recently in an unenlightening interview<\/a> with the Associated Press earlier this week. But report by Amnesty International released Wednesday demonstrated heavy foot-dragging by the Qatari government, stating that while some reforms have been proposed, most of them have yet to be imple<\/span>mented and offer solutions that are ancillary at best. “Time is running out fast,” the report states. “The legacy of the FIFA 2022 World Cup would be the hundreds\u00a0of thousands of workers who were exploited to make it happen.”<\/p>\n

While boycotts seem unlikely, foreign governments are remaining watchful of FIFA’s affairs. Unsatisfied with the ethics committee’s decision, the FBI will continue<\/a> its own three-year investigation of FIFA. Meanwhile, a British MP<\/a> has asked the UK’s Serious Fraud Office to look into the matter as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Supporters of Russia and Qatar will no doubt cry foul, accusing these governments of bias and sour grapes for losing their own bids.<\/p>\n

\"FIFA<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00a0Kavitha Davidson writes: The corruption probe of\u00a0the World Cup bidding process may be predictably over, but the controversy surrounding FIFA’s decisions on who should host is just getting started. As expected, the tournament will still take place in Russia in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t