The Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA as it is widely known, is the massive international governing body of the world's most popular sport: futbol (or soccer as it is called in the United States). FIFA is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland and has 209 different, participating national associations. As the most powerful organization that resides over the most popular sport in the world, FIFA has extreme global influence and generates insane amounts of revenue annually. The organization appears to have admirable intentions by claiming in its mission statement that the goal of FIFA is to "touch the world through its inspiring tournaments and to build a better future through the power of the game", but the governing body of "the beautiful game" is also plagued by corruption ("About"). This essay intends to investigate the numerous corruption allegations that have come FIFA's way over the last several years, to bring to light what has been transpiring in the global organization. 

Over the last couple decades, there has been a strong sense of corruption surrounding the FIFA organization, but not until recently had there been any serious action taken to address the issue. According to the well-known website "Wired," on May 27, 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland, Swiss police entered a hotel that several members of FIFA were staying at for a summit, and arrested six FIFA executives (McFarland). After these arrests were made, on the same day, across the Atlantic in New York, the United States 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 span from racketeering, to wire fraud and money laundering (McFarland). In a CNN article by Eliott C. McLaughlin and Greg Botelho, they reference United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who spoke publicly on this issue. According to her, the most serious of the charges included in the indictment are the racketeering charges which suggest that the officials turned soccer into a "criminal enterprise" (Botelho).  

The rampant allegations of corruption throughout FIFA have claimed the careers of two of the most powerful men in the soccer world: FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, and UEFA President, Michael Platini. The pair have been banned from all soccer related activities for 8 years ("Fifa Corruption Crisis"). According to BBC News, the two are accused of misconduct regarding a 2 million dollar payment made to Platini in 2011. It seems that corruption spans all of the major soccer organizations, not only FIFA. An important person in the ongoing investigation into the corruption is Chuck Blazer, because he is cooperating with United States prosecutors. He was the former general secretary of Concacaf, or the Confederation of North Central America and Caribbean Association Football. On June 3, 2015, in a testimony published by the United States Justice Department, Blazer admitted to many instances of accepting bribes over the last several years. He says that he and others on the FIFA executive committee accepted bribes regarding the 2010 South Africa World Cup, as well as facilitated a bribe in the in the determining of the 1998 World Cup to be held in France ("Staff, ESPN).

The amount of money in the international soccer world is tremendous. For FIFA, one of the most lucrative areas is the sale of the television rights of their sporting events to different broadcasters. From the 2014 World Cup alone, FIFA made 2.4 billion dollars solely from the sales of television rights (Manfred). The indictment issued by the Justice Department addresses the process through which these rights are sold. It discusses deals that were made between sports marketing groups and broadcast corporations with FIFA. Allegedly, there are some marketing firms that have bribed FIFA officials in order to obtain exclusive television rights. It is estimated that there has been over 150 million dollars exchanged in the form of bribes and kickbacks, and that this corruption dates back to 1991 spanning nearly a generation of FIFA officials (McFarland). As well as the issues surrounding bribery throughout the organization, there has been heavy suspicion of "vote buying" after Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup. 

FIFA's most well-known event is the World Cup, which takes place every four years. This international championship is held in the highest regard for every nation that competes. There are 32 spots that are filled by the top national teams from around the world out of the 209 countries that actively participate in FIFA. This event brings in massive amounts of revenue for FIFA. According to Business Insider, FIFA generated 4.8 billion dollars from the 2014 World Cup alone ("FIFA Corruption"). The representatives for each country are given a vote to determine who the host country will be for the World Cup, and this process has recently come under much scrutiny after the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively. This brought a lot of questioning onto Sepp Blatter, the man who held the FIFA presidency for 17 years from 1998 to 2015. Tara John, a writer for Time Magazine, published an article online that looks further into the process of determining the location of the World Cup and discusses an interview that Blatter did with a Russian news agency that is bringing further attention to the issue. In John's article, she includes numerous quotations from Blatter, including him saying, "In 2010 we had a discussion of the World Cup and then we went to a double decision. For the World Cups it was agreed that we go to Russia because it's never been in Russia, Eastern Europe, and for 2022 we go back to America ... and so we will have the World Cup in the two biggest political powers" (John). This news of predetermining the locations of the World Cup was found to be quite alarming. Obviously this did not happen in the end, since the 2022 World Cup has been awarded to Qatar, not the United States. This decision has only brought more negative attention to FIFA and the possibility of "vote buying." The reason that this can be such a serious problem is that the FIFA voting system is flawed. Each country is awarded only a single vote. This is regardless of the population of each country or their relevance in the international soccer world. This provides an easy opportunity to manipulate the system for corrupt officials. If they can collect the support of many smaller nations, even if they are basically irrelevant in the soccer world, they can have a huge impact and swing the vote a certain way. This system should be reevaluated to take into account various different factors that are specific to individual countries, in order to improve the voting process.

Ever since the minute that FIFA announced the 2022 World Cup would be held in Qatar, there have been countless questions surrounding how this came to be; it took no time at all for corruption allegations to surface. A contributor for the Sports and Law Journal, Walter Cairns, published an article looking into the possible corruption concerning Qatar's World Cup bid. Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup in late 2010 and shortly after that in 2012, the most senior Qatari official at FIFA, Mohammed Bin Hammam, was banned from any involvement in soccer for life. This was due to evidence that showed he had bribed senior officials at the Caribbean Football Union, in attempts to further his campaign for the FIFA presidency with, then incumbent, Sepp Blatter (Cairns). The awarding of the World Cup to a country represented by officials such as Hammam is cause enough alone for worry, but the problems surrounding the Qatari World Cup extend much further than just this. 

The average summer temperature in Qatar is 106 degrees ("FIFA Corruption"). The World Cup takes place throughout the height of summer, and a country with such excruciating heat could definitely create a dangerous environment for the players of all the different countries. They are pushing themselves to their physical limits in the pursuit of winning the most prestigious tournament in the world of soccer, and if they were to do so in conditions such as these, players could suffer serious injuries or even death. This has added the question of safety to throw in with the long list of other concerns associated with the 2022 World Cup. In addition to this, there is also an ethical dilemma that comes with the World Cup taking place in Qatar. In preparation to host the tournament, there is an enormous amount of work that has to be done that requires thousands of laborers. It is estimated that the Qatar World Cup will cost roughly 6 billion dollars, indicating just how much will have to be done, which leads to the need for a huge amount of laborers ("Fifa Corruption Crisis"). According to Walter Cairns, in Qatar, there is a "kefala" system in place that ties migrant workers to their "sponsors" and prevents them from leaving the country (Cairns). As well as this, there have been numerous deaths reported due to brutal living and working conditions that the laborers in Qatar are forced to endure. Since Qatar was awarded the World Cup in 2010, 1200 migrant workers have died, and it is estimated that by the time the work is complete, over 4000 migrant workers will have lost their lives. This begs the moral and ethical question of how other nations can allow this to happen when Qatar is so blatantly unfit to host the World Cup in 2022. 

Some who are relatively disinterested in soccer may question why all of this even matters, but FIFA has a powerful impact that is felt throughout the entire world; it is not limited only to those interested/involved in soccer. A writer for the Sports Management Review, Roger Pielke, discusses various reasons for the importance of the governance of international soccer. Pielke's first point addresses the immense size of the soccer world. He states that "soccer is a global sport that connects the world in a unique manner" (Pielke). He also points out that FIFA's 209 member associations make it a larger membership than the Olympic committee. It is estimated that for the final game in the 2010 World Cup between Spain and The Netherlands, more than 700 million people tuned in to watch (Pielke). These statistics demonstrate the clear popularity of the sport throughout the world and how many people it affects. With a following this large, Pielke claims that FIFA should act as a public body and be held accountable for their actions. 

It is also apparent that FIFA can have a wide spread economic influence as well. The World Cup generates billions of dollars and is also associated with numerous large corporations and broadcasting networks. In his article, Pielke argues that "FIFA -- even though by law still a non-profit association, is in fact a corporate entity. This calls for a sequence of governance measures developed in the corporate world" (Pielke). He is essentially saying that FIFA needs to be held accountable for their actions considering how many people they have an impact on. Considering the vast range of people impacted by the organization gives rise to the question of who the victims are of FIFA's corruption. In an article for NBC News, John Schuppe, addresses this question.

Schuppe argues that the victims of FIFA's corruption are less developed nations that depend on FIFA for money to fund youth soccer programs. This opinion is garnering increasing acknowledgement, including from the US Attorney of the Eastern District of New York, Kelly T. Currie, who stated that "a lot of these developing countries depend upon, for their youth development programs, grants from FIFA ... and the bribe money that comes out of the pot, if you will, for the value of these marketing rights takes money away from soccer fields and soccer balls for kids" (Schuppe). FIFA does operate as a non-profit, so they should be focusing on how to better the world rather than wasting millions in the forms of bribes and kickbacks. Although FIFA does do great work for less developed nations through their programs, even when they are doing so, corruption still looms. One program that FIFA has implemented is called "Goal," and it gives out millions in grants to developing nations annually. Some have accused FIFA of using the "Goal" program to secure votes from certain countries (Schuppe). This contributes to the suspicion of "vote buying" that goes on throughout FIFA. 

It is quite clear that what FIFA does with its money is known to be a grey area to say the least. In the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, contributor Andrew Jennings notes that the reason FIFA's financial transactions often go under the table, is because they operate under Swiss charitable association rules (Jennings). According to Jennings, this "guarantees minimal disclosure about what they do with their money" (Jennings). FIFA claims that even though this is the case they try to remain as transparent as possible. The FIFA Secretary and Director of Finance, Urs Linsi, encouraged FIFA to be open about what they are doing: "There is a huge public interest in FIFA, therefore we have to be as transparent as possible. We will try to communicate in a more open way concerning football matters so the world can believe us and be proud of their federation" Upon hearing this, Andrew Jennings went on to attempt to find out just how transparent FIFA is. He emailed Mr. Linsi inquiring about the amount that then FIFA president, Sepp Blatter was paid. Mr. Linsi did not respond, so he went on to contact the FIFA Director of Communications, Markus Siegler to find the answer to his question. Siegler avoided the question, and then insisted that he had told Jennings the answer already even though he clearly had not. This example demonstrates that FIFA's intention to be "transparent" is, in reality, just a facade. 

It is abundantly clear that the corruption that taints FIFA is an extremely relevant and serious issue. An organization as large as FIFA, with an ability to effect as many people as FIFA, should certainly be held accountable for their actions. They are in need of desperate reform in order for "the beautiful game" to once again live up to its name. The range of people impacted by this organization is staggering. It is not only limited to the professional athletes and the fans, but rather includes people like migrant workers in World Cup host countries and youth in less developed nations. It is up to the member nations of FIFA to take action and regain the integrity of the organization. After considering the true extent of FIFA's reach, it clearly emphasizes the necessity to rid the organization of corruption in order to promote a better world for all. 

