FIFA stands for The Federation Internationale de Futbol Association, and it is the global governing body for the sport of soccer, or futbol, as most of the world refers to it. The organization is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, and there are 209 different, participating national associations ("Topic"). FIFA states its mission as: "to develop futbol everywhere and for all, to touch the world through its inspiring tournaments and to build a better future through the power of the game." ("About") This massive organization brings in extreme amounts of revenue annually. According to Business Insider, FIFA generated 4.8 billion dollars in revenue from the 2014 World Cup alone. An organization of this size can obviously be quite influential, but sadly, this particular entity is also plagued by corruption.        

This topic is personally interesting to me because I have loved the game of soccer all of my life. I started playing at the age of five and continued through my middle and high school years. I am fortunate enough to have been able to visit the stadiums of both FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, two of the leading soccer clubs in Spain, which furthered my interest in the sport. As well as playing, I have also always liked to watch the professional games on television. When the World Cup comes around in the summer every four years, it is one of the best times to be a soccer fan. Even those who do not normally follow soccer are often overcome with pride and patriotism, and ready to show their support for their country. With soccer being such a major part of my life, when I heard of the various corruption scandals involving FIFA, I was eager to do some research and learn more. 

Talk of corruption in the FIFA organization has been going on for years, and recently action has been taken by law enforcement to address this issue. According to the credible, well-known website, Wired, on May 27, 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland, Swiss police entered a five star hotel that several members of FIFA were staying in, and arrested six FIFA executives (McFarland). After these arrests were made, on the same day, in New York, the Justice Department issued a 47 count indictment against 14 defendants, many of whom are FIFA officials, as well as sports marketing and broadcasting executives. The charges included racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering (McFarland).          

One of the most lucrative areas for FIFA involves the television rights to their sporting events. From the 2014 World Cup alone, FIFA made 2.4 billion dollars strictly from sales of the TV rights (Manfred). This area is the main source of the complex 47 count indictment that the Justice Department issued. The indictment discusses deals between FIFA and sports marketing groups along with broadcast corporations regarding the rights to televise the World Cup and other international tournaments (McFarland). Allegedly, certain marketing firms gave extensive bribes to FIFA officials in order to secure exclusive television rights. It is estimated that over 150 million dollars have been exchanged in the forms of bribes and kickbacks and this corruption dates back to 1991, spanning multiple generations of FIFA officials. As well as the numerous bribes for television rights, it has also been suspected that there has been "vote buying", after FIFA announced that they are giving the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Several officials have already arranged guilty plea deals with the Justice Department in hopes of avoiding prison sentences. These officials include FIFA executive Charles Blazer, and the owner of a Brazilian sports marketing conglomerate, Jose Hawilla. Hawilla's plea includes him forfeiting 151 million dollars which makes it quite apparent how much money is in the international soccer world. 

There are many contributing factors for how FIFA managed to become so corrupt. One of these is that for all 209 nations represented in the organization, they each get only 1 vote (McFarland). There is no system in place to take into account the population of each country or the influence that different nations have, so each country has the same impact when voting on different issues. While this may sound like a good idea, it can lead to manipulation of some countries to secure votes in favor of issues at hand. The former FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, was at the center of the corruption controversy. Blatter was elected president of FIFA in 1998 and remained president until resigning in 2015 amid the news of the corruption scandal ("The Rise"). Having the same person in power for such a long time may have also contributed to the extreme corruption throughout the organization. 

For my research paper, I want to look deeper into everything that has happened with FIFA and try to figure out how things got so out of hand. This entails finding a lot of factual information, but the topic is also arguable in that people may have different perspectives on what gave rise to such corruption. 

