team america world police

[bicycletricycle]

the recent FIFA arrests got me thinking.

european sport gets popular in america.
american authorities decide to "clean up sport"
european fans already knew about said corruption and don't care.
sport suffers (arguably, I guess)

cycling, soccer, what's next? rugby?

makes me worry about F1

new american team coming aboard, everyone knows Bernie is a bit shady.

No one here seems to care about the obvious steroid usage in american sports, maybe we should clean up our own games before we investigate everyone else.

I guess some people do care about steroids here but it seems like we are all willing to pretend that said cases are "limited" and not widespread and thus we can stick our heads right back into the ground.

Sorry for the slightly random political ramble here, not advocating cheating or corruption here, just seems like we got some problems at home to investigate in the sporting arena.

[christian]

I don't think the IRS cares about cheating. They do care about money laundering and tax evasion on income though!

[BobO]

I doubt you can say no one cares about steroid use in american sports. There have been multiple high profile cases in just baseball. But, your point is taken. Something is fishy with this prosecution.

[bcroslin]

While FIFA may very well be corrupt to it's core the question I'd like to ask is how many on Wall Street were rounded up and arrested after the financial collapse in 2007?

This country's leadership and both political parties have their priorities so thoroughly screwed up that going after a sporting organization's leadership is something that the public is supposed to applaud? Sigh.

[BobO]

While FIFA may very well be corrupt to it's core the question I'd like to ask is how many on Wall Street were rounded up and arrested after the financial collapse in 2007?

This country's leadership and both political parties have their priorities so thoroughly screwed up that going after a sporting organization's leadership is something that the public is supposed to applaud? Sigh.

The common thread there is that both parties have meal tickets, more often than not it the same meal ticket. i.e. Many of the same firms in the financial sector donate heavily to both sides. In all likelyhood, somebody was heavily invested in World Cup 2018 coming stateside. When it went elsewhere, (s)he cried foul to whomever he had greased in our government, and an investigation resulted.

I have to wonder what the reaction would be if WC 2018 had come here and people were indicted in Russian courts.

[Mayhem]

Next is the NFL when some young investigative reporter who wants to make a name for himself opens that can of worms.

[Louis]

If we must clean up something, I'll take us cleaning up FIFA instead of cleaning up Iraq any day of the week.

The bigger question in my mind is what will happen as we push back against Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea. Seems to me that that one's a lose-lose situation for us.

[Chris]

In before the lock. So close.

[bicycletricycle]

I'm pretty excited about a NFL explosive story nightmare.

[JAGI410]

Durka Durka jihad

[JAllen]

While FIFA may very well be corrupt to it's core the question I'd like to ask is how many on Wall Street were rounded up and arrested after the financial collapse in 2007?

just thinking about them getting away with it makes me not want to be on this rock.

[Neil]

"The former director-general of the BBC said that Mr Blatter’s failure to win the support of football’s two most influential continents was indicative of his vulnerable position.
“What is interesting, so I am told, is that most of Europe voted against him and all of Latin America voted against him, so if it’s true that means the two biggest football continents said ‘we don’t want you, Mr Blatter’. And those are the two continents that are the World Cup,” he said.
“Only the smaller countries would have voted for him because they rely totally on Fifa for their income. We, at the FA, we don’t need Fifa. We don’t need them at all. We can say what we like. And I understand he is now saying ‘I forgive, but don’t forget.’ Well, let me tell him back, we neither forgive nor forget either.”"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-william/11641043/Prince-William-to-Fifa-tackle-corruption-and-put-sport-first.html

I think a boycott of the World Cup is the only sensible route forward - let the African and Asian nations compete in Russia and Qatar whilst the rest of the world casts their votes afresh, and plays in a new tournament that doesn't have £100 million in bribes, and thousands of dead to it's name.

[ultraman6970]

Well... IMO there is a thing of GVMT politics involved in the problem too... It looks like the world police tho, you are right.

But if you look at it, is quite unfair that some suckers get 10 millions just like that to sign a paper and the rest of the world works 50 hours a week for minimal wage?? And it suppose to be about the sport not about filling your pockets with money and if you look at it that way, the americans arent doing something wrong. As a punishment I would ban for life those countries that wet the fifa guys forever of having a world cup in their countries as a deterrent.

And if you look all of the sports (but maybe cycling) is just insane what some players earn... understandable the guys have a life span of 5 to 10 years but 100 millions to play with any kind of ball??? Meanwhile for sure all the guys that have kids can see that schools are lacking stuff, teachers are being fired because of budget cuts and stuff... and honestly, there is no way in hell a teacher will do not even 1 million during 50 years teaching. Well.. out of topic maybe :p