Sepp Blatter doesn’t call it a “crisis”

That’s right, despite several previous posts (here, here, and here) noting the bribery and corruption issues which have hit FIFA, Sepp Blatter claims that the organization is not in crisis.  It seems with each passing day (or literally, a few passing hours since my previous post) that more details and news seems to make this FIFA bribery and corruption scandal look even worse.  Blatter said in a very lively press conference:

“Crisis? What is a crisis? Football is not in a crisis.  We are not in a crisis. We are only in some difficulties and these difficulties will be solved — and they will be solved inside this family.”

I think someone is in denial.  There is clearly a mass of issues here, but Blatter is most likely to be president for another couple of years, and probably his ego tells him he is in control, so nothing can go wrong.  But with all these issues which have come under his watch, how can anyone really trust FIFA in the future?

In more corruption news, FIFA cleared Nicolas Leoz, a FIFA member from Paraguay who had been charged with asking for favors in return for his vote for the 2018 World Cup host selection process.  Reading a report on the 2018 World Cup host selection process on FIFA’s website, you can see that it is alleged that Mr. Leoz’s assistant asked for the FA Cup to be named after him, and a knighthood and in return he would give a vote for the 2018 World Cup to be held in England.  You can read the full report: here.  It is full of great quotes and allegations, yet FIFA somehow is saying this really didn’t happen, or it isn’t serious enough to take into consideration.

The question arises: Why is Blatter and Leoz off with no charges, but Bin Hammam and Warner suspended?  It all points to FIFA keeping those who are currently in higher positions of power in their current place.  I don’t know how much damage control FIFA can do, but I’m thinking that this whole scandal could be costly.  I’m imagining countries are going to be less likely to pour money into World Cup bids with all of this news.  Of course, the counter-point could be that they might actually put in more money, knowing that a few well placed bribes could be the secret to being named a host.

In one other piece of news, I’d like to congratulate Swansea for their 4-2 win over Reading earlier today to secure promotion from the nPower championship up to the Premier League for next season.  The boost in revenue should be nice for them, but we’ll see if they will be able to hang around the top flight of English professional soccer for long.

$40,000 to “do what you want with”

See that picture to the right?  That is $40,000, brand new U.S. hundred dollar bills.  It is also supposedly a picture taken by Fred Lunn or another member of the Bahamas Football Association (FA).  Mr. Lunn, a vice-president for the Bahamas FA was at the meeting which Bin Hammam had with members of the various Caribbean football associations to try and make his case to become the FIFA president.  As noted in previous posts, Bin Hammam along with CONCACAF’s Jack Warner have both been temporarily suspended from football related activities by the FIFA ethics panel.

This morning, the picture you see to the right emerged, as part of the evidence which was given to the ethics panel.  Mr. Lunn noted that he went into a room to receive a gift from Bin Hammam and picked up the envelope and literally had a pile of hundred dollar bills spill out.  This seems more like a good mob movie, than a FIFA meeting.  Lunn contacted the head of his FA, and they agreed that the money was to be returned.  Of course, being smart, they snapped a quick photo of the money.  It is claimed that the money was for whatever each FA wanted to do with it.  They could use it for grassroots programs, training, development, or lining their own pockets.  Mr. Lunn went back to the room to give back the money, but found he had to wait in line, as others were queued up to get in.  He then texted his FA head saying:

“a lot of the boys taking the cash, this is sad given the breaking news on the TV CNN… I’m truly surprise its happening at this conference”

So it appears that a lot of people did take the cash.

In more FIFA corruptions news:

FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke has confirmed that he sent an email to the now suspended Jack Warner saying that the 2022 World Cup had been bought.

Australian Senator Nick Xenophon has called for FIFA to be “Red Carded” and for Australia to not spend any more money on World Cup bids until this whole process is straightened out.

And in a bit of positive news for FIFA, or possibly a well-timed release to try and make it look like they are actually fighting against corruption, FIFA has announced it has helped to break up a match-fixing ring in the UAE.  They claim that this ring has ties to both Asia and Europe, and is an important move against corruption in the game.

I think that FIFA has bigger corruption issues in house at the moment.

Can FIFA survive?

FIFA, the governing body for football (or soccer as we call it in my home countries of the U.S. and Japan), has been in the spotlight lately for corruption.  I once noted to my students in class that FIFA is probably the second most corrupt governing body in sport after the International Olympic Committee (IOC).  I might have to retract this statement after the latest round of corruption and allegations which have come out.  In a previous post I noted the potential scandal of buying votes to choose the host for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.  The newest round of scandal has occurred because of the election race for the Presidency of FIFA.  Current FIFA President Sepp Blatter is running for re-election, his opponent in this election is Mohamed Bin Hammam who is a FIFA vice-president and the head of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).  As the election approached there was some talk of Bin Hammam having bribed people to vote for him, Bin Hammam said that Blatter was doing the same thing, CONCACAF head Jack Warner(who is also a FIFA vice-president as well) was also indicated in the whole mess.  Details indicate that Warner handed out $40,000 bundles of cash to Caribbean Football members at a meeting, Blatter is accused of giving a million dollars to CONCACAF for them to “use as they please.”

FIFA’s ethics panel examined the cases of these three individuals.  Bin Hammam, who had already pulled out of the running for FIFA President because of this incident, was suspended from football related activities along with Jack Warner.  Their ban is a temporary one, which could be lifted or made longer pending the further findings of the ethics panel.  Sepp Blatter, on the other hand, was let off free without any sanctions.  The suspicions of whether the ethics panel can be trusted is already being widely discussed.  Bin Hammam and Warner have also hit out against their suspensions.  Bin Hammam stated:

“…I also indicated that at the Miami CONCACAF Congress on May 3rd, Mr. Blatter made a gift of one million USD to CONCACAF to spend as it deems fit. This annoyed President Michel Platini who was present and he approached Secretary General Jerome Valcke complaining that Mr Blatter had no permission from the Finance Committee to make this gift to which Jerome replied that he will find the money for Mr Blatter.

So, what is the aftermath?  FIFA is supposedly paying more attention to corruption (so they claim), and Sepp Blatter will most likely be elected to serve as the ruler of FIFA yet again.  As a friend of mine noted, this seems like something you would expect from a dictatorship.  That same friend in the comments to a previous post noted that he thinks that some countries should break away from FIFA and start a new federation.

Former IOC vice-president Dick Pound has now made similar statements, basically noting that countries may form a break away association if FIFA doesn’t handle this mess quickly.  Sort of ironic hearing that from a former IOC official.

So can FIFA survive?  I think they can.  I think Blatter will be back in charge ruling with an iron fist and claiming more transparency.  However, FIFA is not in the clear, if anything more and more questions are being raised, and I can imagine a lot of angry countries who lost out on the World Cup bidding process wanting some form of retribution.  I’ll be interested to see how this saga continues.

 

The Cat is Out of the Bag

Over here in the land of the European Convention on Human Rights, there’s been a very big fuss about things called super injunctions; as Google Trends will readily verify, before mid-2010 nobody had ever actually Googled the term, and before late 2009 no news articles had ever thought to mention them.

They are court orders that can be taken out (usually by the rich and famous) to stop news about them being reported in the media. They are “super” because the fact that the injunction has been taken out cannot even be reported nor can anyone involved be reported in the media.

That was, however, until people started Tweeting details about players with the pseudonyms CTB and TSE recently. Eventually an MP outed CTB (Ryan Giggs) yesterday in Parliament, making a total mockery of the whole thing. The player, Ryan Giggs, in case you weren’t aware, is the most decorated footballer in English history having played for Manchester United since 1990. He’s always been a very private player, one rarely hears his voice as he doesn’t often give interviews. However, he was so keen to have gossip about his affair kept quiet he has sued Twitter in an attempt to get the details of those Tweeters who dared to out him.

I’m personally really unsure what I think about all of this. As a Christian naturally I don’t think adultery is a particularly good thing, but then acutely aware of my own sin, it’s not for me to judge. Is it really for me, or anyone apart from those involved, to know? Giggs has always kept himself private, so why shouldn’t that carry on? His rather messy attempt to sue Twitter seems ill-advised and doesn’t incline me towards the guy (as does his Man Utd affiliation), but he should still be allowed to confront the issues in his life in his own way rather than being forced; he isn’t a Tiger Woods who carefully crafted a particular “family man” image over the years. On the other hand, he chose to have an affair with a very public figure.

Naturally the British press, and in particular the tabloids, are up in arms about all of this. Why should freedom of speech be constrained at the bequest of the rich? What about our right to know (even though I’m not sure we do have one here!)? I’m sure they are fighting on principle rather than solely based on this case alone, but I’m always unsure about our ever invasive press here in the UK for the reasons outlined here – Ryan Giggs is a footballer first and foremost and always has been. If we want to set him up as something else (role model) that he didn’t ever set himself out to be, then its our problem; we certainly don’t then have the right to all the juicy gossip about him because we set him up on that pedestal.

What now for super injunctions? Will superstars continue to take them out? A Google search for super injunction shows that it isn’t just footballer either – but have they been killed by this episode? Even if a superstar gets one, someone could happily Tweet from an internet cafe or abroad or wherever on a made up account, and it’s out in the open. I doubt they’re particularly cheap either with legal fees being what they are.

 

Does an NFL Lockout increase crime?

Ray Lewis gave an interview to ESPN stating that he believes if the NFL lockout continues, it will lead to an increase in crime.  Ray Lewis, a linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, states:

Do this research if we don’t have a season — watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game,

I know everyone’s first thought is that Ray Lewis is hinting that if the NFL lockout continues, and players do not get paid, that many of the players will turn to a life of crime to help pay the bills.  However, Lewis is really not indicated that the players will turn to crime, but rather the people who depend on the players and owners for a job and/or some type of financial backing.  Lewis continues:

There’s too many people that live through us, people live through us,… Yeah, walk in the streets, the way I walk the streets, and I’m not talking about the people you see all the time.

It seems that Lewis is really point towards the “hanger-on’s” and “posse’s” that many NFL players have, as well as other dependents who live in poor financial conditions.  It is known there are a number of athletes who do have such groups, but I wonder if having a lockout would really increase the crime rate.  Lewis does end noting that the two sides (the owners and NFL players) need to get back to the negotiating table and get a deal done, as he knows many people who are hurting from the lockout.

On another thought, I wonder if the lack of NFL to watch on Sunday’s and Monday night’s in the Fall could lead to an increase in crime rate because of individuals having “nothing” to do.  Instead of sitting at home and watching games, some people might instead go out looking for something else to do, and in some cases this could lead to crime.  I don’t think that this would hold true in all communities, and I’m not suggesting there is going to be a national crime wave (I believe Ray Lewis is not suggesting this either), but there are probably some communities that could be affected if the NFL is in lockout.

Of course, all of this could be a great tactic by Ray Lewis to get into the negotiations between the owners and players.  He hasn’t been part of any of the negotiations, but has been hinting that he wants to be part of the talks.  Either way you take it, Ray Lewis always makes good headlines.

Atlanta Thrashers to relocate to Winnipeg

The Atlanta Thrashers, who have been in dire financial straits are on the move back to Canada.  The Globe and Mail article linked here notes that the Thrashers are to be sold and transferred to True North Sports and Entertainment, who own the Manitoba AHL franchise.  The new Winnipeg team will play at the MTS Centre Arena.  This is probably much needed relief for the franchise which was over a hundred million dollars in the red.

I’m really hoping that the Winnipeg franchise is named the Jets and brings back the old logo.  I am not sure that will happen as the Jets left Winnipeg to head to Phoenix where they became the Coyotes (another team that has had financial troubles)  I also wonder what will happen to the AHL franchise, is there enough hockey fans in Winnipeg to watch both the NHL and AHL franchises?  Also, will the NHL stop trying to hold franchises in the South, and let them migrate to Canada, where there seems to be a lot more interest in the sport.  I’d be curious to see if this starts a wave of teams heading north, as Hamilton, Ontario and Quebec offer two great locales for NHL franchises in my mind.

Big Ten to pay student athletes?

The Big Ten is in their yearly meetings at the moment, and one thing which came up was a discussion of paying student-athletes.  Long has the debate of paying student-athletes persisted.  Purists argue that student athletes are already paid in the education they receive, and that they should be happy with their current tuition waiver, fees, as well as the honor of playing for a university.  Others argue that student-athletes should get paid because of the amount of revenue which they generate for their organizations.  Research in sports economics has shown that the rents generated by premium college athletes in college football, and men’s and women’s basketball are often many times higher than the price of tuition, room and board, and other fees covered as part of the scholarship.

The Big Ten’s new proposal considers the increasing gap between cost of living (from expenses such as transportation and clothing) and the value of scholarships.  They say that this gap is valued somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000.  This proposal is actually favored by current NCAA President Mark Emmert as well as the late former NCAA President Myles Brand.  There is speculation that this payment would be uniform across all student athletes, and would be paid to all athletes in the Big Ten and that the money would come from television revenues.

Now my thought is that this could be a bit of an advantage for the Big Ten, as the conference is quite strong already, but the promise of a payment along with scholarship may make they teams in the conference more attractive to recruits, especially those in need of money.  The solution of course would be for other conferences to follow suit, however this is something that some may not be able to do because of high financial strain on many conferences and athletic departments.  I’ll be curious to see how this progresses, and the potential implications it would mean.  I imagine the other major conferences would follow the Big Ten’s examples.  Maybe this is the first step towards pay-for-play in college athletics.

Of course, I had to include the new Big Ten logo in this post, which I am not a fan of.

How to fix the “Agent Problem” in America

In previous posts we have discussed here on the blog about how to solve issues within a game by applying financial punishment for rules infractions.  For those infractions which have mild punishments, such as the game delay fine for teams throwing extra balls on the field to stop matches (teams are only fined a few hundred dollars for this, when literally millions of dollars are sometimes on the line), I have suggested to increase the fine so that teams would be less likely to take the risk of having this happen several times a game.

Last year, there were several university athletic programs in the U.S. which had problems with agents making impermissible contact with student-athletes.  In many cases, such contact can cause for student-athletes as well as the program the student-athlete plays for being punished, having eligibility removed, and other steps which can have a deep impact on the program.  While college athletics is a big business and can not be entirely devoid of this issue, there is a problem of having lots of “rogue” or “street” agents who try to make illegal contact with the players, giving them gifts and other such incentives in the hopes of having that athlete sign with them.  This kind of investment is important because it can mean a significant payout for the agents in the future.

So what is done about these agents making this kind of contact?  Well there are laws in place to try and keep them from making such contact.  These can be enforced by individual states or by the Federal Trade Commission.  However, most states or the FTC were found to have not punished a single agent or any runners (individuals who often make contact and act as a go-between for the agent and player) last year.  Punishment can include fines, suspension and/or revoking of agents licenses.  The state of Texas is one of the few that did punish individuals for illegal contact, collecting a total of $17,000 in fines.  My suggestion: increase the fines, and I don’t know, how about actually enforcing the laws which have been put into place?  I think fining agents and their runners, and making sure the fines are substantial enough will cut back on a lot of the problems (but won’t solve the problem).

The state of Texas is working on a new law which would bring the strictest punishment to those in violation of the law.  The punishment is not a fine, but would be a felony charge that could send someone making such illegal contact to prison for up to ten years.  I find this new law quite excessive, but maybe Texas is fed up with all these agents making such contact.  One thing is for certain, if such a law were to be passed, and if it were actually enforced, I could see agents and runners not wanting to take as many risks in trying to sign players in the state of Texas.

How to buy the World Cup

The Sunday Times has given evidence to an MP claiming that several FIFA members accepted $1.5 million from Qatar.  Clearly the implication is that these FIFA members were paid by Qatar to vote for them to host the 2022 World Cup.  The two individuals specifically named in the Sunday Times evidence include FIFA vice-president Issa Hayatou from Cameroon and Jacques Anouma from the Ivory Coast.  Additionally Lord Triesman, former chairman of the FA accused four FIFA executive members for asking for gifts in return for their votes for the 2018 World Cup hosting rights.

This isn’t the first time, nor the last time that FIFA will be accused of corruption.  That there may be evidence implicating the 2nd in charge of FIFA of taking bribe money is a big deal in my opinion.  Nothing is proved at the moment, but these allegations can not be taken lightly.

Vikings one step closer to a new stadium

The Minnesota Vikings, in need of a new stadium for many years now moved one step closer towards getting a new stadium today by hosting a press conference about a new potential stadium deal.  Ramsey County and the Vikings came to an agreement for a new billion dollar stadium, of which the Vikings would contribute $407 million of the costs.  If the deal is passed, the new stadium will be built ten miles north of Minneapolis.  The big issue is whether the deal will actually get full approval from the Minnesota Legislature to get the other $600 million dollars from public funding.  Pro Football Talk notes that the press conference to announce this new deal was a bit awkward, but is a big step closer towards a new stadium for the Vikings.  It is said the Vikings would be ready to play in the new facility three years from now if the Minnesota legislature passes the bill soon.

I wonder if having the roof cave in because of excess snow during this last football season will help convince people that the Vikings need a new stadium

H/T (Hat Tip) to Shawn for the heads up on this.