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Indicted Ex-FIFA Executive Cites Onion Article In Rant Slamming US
schwit1 writes with news that former FIFA Vice President Jack Warner has evidently not heard of The Onion. In a video on his Facebook page, Warner holds up a printout of an Onion story titled “FIFA Frantically Announces 2015 Summer World Cup In United States” and says: “Then I look to see that Fifa has frantically announced, 2015, this year [...] the World Cup, beginning May 27. If FIFA is so bad, why is it that the USA wants to keep the Fifa World Cup?” The next World Cup is not due to be held until 2018 and there have been no games in the U.S.. Warner is facing extradition to the U.S. on corruption charges. Time further reports: Even Sunday wasn't easy, when Warner needed two attempts to get his message across by telling followers that the latest accusations against him stem largely from the U.S. being upset that it did not win the rights to host the 2022 World Cup — which went to Qatar. In an eight-minute Facebook video, which was quickly deleted after numerous news reports picked up on the gaffe, Warner held up a printout of a fictitious story from The Onion bearing the headline: "FIFA Frantically Announces 2015 Summer World Cup In United States." The fake story was published on Wednesday, hours after Warner was indicted in the U.S. and arrested and briefly jailed in Trinidad. Warner asked why the story was "two days before the FIFA election" when Sepp Blatter was re-elected as president.
The US is far from impartial. They lost of a bid for the world cup which would have been a massive
US Soccer lost a bid. The US at large doesn't give a shit, and would on the balance prefer to not have their regular traffic/TV coverage messed with over a niche sport only played in the suburbs by children. I'm perhaps exaggerating, but not by much. US Soccer has less political pull in the USA than the Muslim Anti-Defamation league.
To top it off, US Soccer doesn't really care any more either. Yes, they were really sore about losing a bid. But they've lost every bid they made since 1994 (as have nearly all other bidders). There's nothing special about that. The last one was special just because the "winner" made all sorts of "investments" in countries that voted for them, and they happen to be a country that is physically incapable of hosting a World Cup. This is so cartoonishly corrupt, that its clear there's no point bothering to bid if you aren't going to cheat. So US Soccer has essentially washed its hands of FIFA Cup bids. They released a statement over 4 years ago saying US Soccer will no longer be making and Cup hosting bids until the process has been cleaned up.
Now lots of folks internationally are skeptical of this. Surely if you wave enough money under their nose, they will bite, right? That's certainly the theory the rest of FIFA seems to operate under. So far US Soccer has held though. I hope they continue to do so.
They claim evidence that the corruption was carried out on US soil using US banks. That's better reasoning to me than "Fifa is multinational and under no one's jurisdiction" as they will claim.
But frankly the fact the US isn't completely obsessed with the sport like some other nations will go a long way to keep things impartial. If fifa threatens to ban the US from world cup consideration you can expect a very heartfelt "oh darn" as a response and the investigation will continue.
By the FCPA, they wouldn't even need to claim that the corruption took place on US soils and/or using US banks. All it takes is either a US national or legal resident, or US company or US-based subsidiary of a foreign company (Traffic Sports USA) to engage in bribery of foreign officials, or be bribed by foreign officials. Bribery and being bribed by foreign officials is the hallmark of FIFA, and that organization pretty much screwed itself up the moment it established links with US companies.
The US is not alone in this. Many developed countries have similar provisions with a global scope (fraud/bribery of this type committed anywhere). A lot more have similar provisions only on a local scope (only those committed locally.)
This FIFA thing is a good thing, but unfortunately the penny arcade crowd is going to tear it down in their endless, nihilistic pursuit for yet another reason to be upset or whatever.
Easy fix. Coke, McDonalds, VISA, Budweiser and every other US corporation can pull sponsorship, then see how it works out for them. I've also heard UEFA (European Football) is discussing separation from FIFA, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to get the Japs and Koreans on-board, ask if Uncle Rupert wants to buy in, and start a whole new organisation. Screw the Russian and Arabs, we don't need their filthy money.
This is actually not too far off from what I've heard talked about. Nearly all the sponsors are US-based, and probably don't want their brands associated with corruption. "Have a Coke, and a dead Qatari migrant worker" doesn't quite have the right ring to it.
Also, Nate Silver did an analysis on UEFA's threat to leave FIFA. While the "western" rule-of-law countries have almost no voting power in FIFA, they have nearly all of the paying viewers. If they left together, UEFA (- Russia) and a few other countries (USA, Japan, S. Korea, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil and Argentina for bonus points), could easily break FIFA. That group there would take about 70% of FIFA's income with them, and 70% of its last round of 16 teams as well.