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Vox
May 27, 2015
by Joseph Stromberg
The international soccer governing body FIFA has been plagued by corruption for years — and according to many experts, Wednesday’s arrest of seven officials in connection with a bribery investigation is just the tip of the iceberg.
The US Department of Justice is claiming that FIFA officials took more than $150 million in bribes when awarding broadcast rights to the World Cup and other tournaments. Meanwhile, a parallel Swiss criminal investigation is looking into charges of money laundering involving the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively.
So why is corruption so endemic to FIFA? Roger Pielke Jr. — a researcher at the University of Colorado who’s written extensively on sports governance — says the problem is oversight.
“FIFA falls into a netherworld of governance,” he says. Unlike pro sports leagues, governmental organizations, or NGOs, it’s subject to very few regulations or oversight, which has inevitably led to all sorts of bribery and corruption.
Pielke’s theoretical solution? Convert FIFA into a big business — which would be subject to far greater scrutiny from the government of Switzerland, where it’s headquartered — or link it more tightly to world governments, perhaps as part of the UN. Of course, Pielke admits that it’s unlikely for this sort of comprehensive change to actually ever happen, especially when it’d cost FIFA’s current leadership all sorts of influence and money. Read more …
