Welcome to the 2015 World Cup Of Fraud…where corruption wins you a golden boot

The soccer world is in shock as the unexpected happened early Wednesday morning. The U.S. Department of Justice indicted 14 world soccer officials on 47 unsealed counts of racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy. Out of the 14 who were accused, there were two major sports marketing companies who pleaded guilty and are likely to cooperate. 7 people were arrested in Zurich with the help of the Swiss authorities as they were able to raid the FIFA headquarters. According to the FBI, FIFA officials were accused of taking more than $140 million dollars in bribery money and in return provided highly profitable media and marketing rights to soccer tournaments as kickbacks over the span of 24 years. Amongst the officials who were arrested were Eduardo Li (current FIFA executive committee president and president of the Costa Rican soccer federation), Jeffrey Webb (president of CONCACAF) , Eugenio Figueredo (current FIFA vice president and executive committee members), Jack Warner (former president of CONCACAF), Julio Rocha (current FIFA development officer and former head of the Central American Football Union), Costas Takkas (an attache and former general secretary of the Cayman Islands Football Association), Rafael Esquivel (president of the Venezuelan soccer federation) , Jose Maria Marin (member of the FIFA organizing committee for the Olympic football tournaments) and Nicolas Leoz (former FIFA executive committee member). US Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke to reporters after the arrest and claimed:

The most serious are the racketeering charges, which allege that the officials turned soccer “into a criminal enterprise”. The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States. It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.


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This event that occurred yesterday could be the turning point of ending corruption in the world of sports and politics. As the Department of Justice are able to put their foot down on justice, let’s hope that FIFA can finally come to their sense and find someone who can lead this billion dollar organization to end social and political injustice. US-1, WORLD-0.

Omari White

Follow Omari on Instagram & Twitter (@SmooveGuyO).