Photo/FIFA.com
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith the 2014 FIFA World Cup beginning this upcoming Thursday, soccer fans the world over are preparing for the festivities as they hope to watch their team win the tournament and the honors that go along with it. But the 20th World Cup, held in Brazil, is steeped in controversy.
Protests in Brazil have continued, with many of the South American country’s citizens arguing that the government wasted far too much money on a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium instead of pumping the cash into the economy and social services. While many in the country go without adequate medical care, jobs and even food, the government seems all but content with the upcoming FIFA tournament.
British investigative journalist Andrew Jennings has released a series of short videos depicting what he calls corruption in the FIFA organization, likening it to an organized crime syndicate, ie. a mafia. Jennings videos are based on his new book, “Omerta – Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family.” The book focuses on much of what is talked about in the videos below, which are part of an Unscriptd.com series.
PART 1
This first video of six explains how the soccer stadium in Brazil is a state-of-the-art facility, but that the nation’s hospitals and schools are crumbling or understaffed. Jennings suggests that taxpayers money has been injected into the FIFA stadium instead of social facilities.
“The best constructed football stadium you ever saw in your life, ” Jennings sayds. “It cost three times more than it should have done because of the money going out to corrupt politicians, to corrupt contractors, corrupt football officials. The money has not gone to schools and hospitals.”
In this piece Jennings sets the scene for the next five videos on alleged corruption in FIFA.
PART 2
The second installment of the series features Jennings tracing FIFA back to it’s origins and linking the organization to mafias.
PART 3
The third part features Jennings describing his run-in with the FBI, suggesting that they were investigating FIFA due to corruption and the US’ loss of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a controversy that is still unfolding at the time of this article. The British reporter laments that FIFA has loss the ability to police itself.
“It’s a shocking thing isn’t it, that football’s unable to reform itself,” Jennings said. “We actually need the FBI and the brave street fighters of Brazil between them to bring some change to FIFA. It’s sad football can’t do it”
“The USA should have won the rights to stage the 2022 World Cup.it was stolen from them,” he adds.
PART 4
The fourth video reveals a sad truth about the underbelly of the FIFA World Cup ticket distribution.
“That’s the real world of ticketing in the World Cup,” Jennings said. “If you’ve got money you can go to a very, very big black market, which is not policed. FIFA doesn’t want to police it … Forty-percent coming out of the back door of FIFA straight into this private world that ordinary fans aren’t allowed to know about”
PART 5
Nearing the end of the series, Jennings takes his audience behind the scenes of an investigation chamber created to scrutinize FIFA’s internal affairs and crimes.
“The people running it work for Sepp Blatter,” Jennings said. “He controls their wages, their pensions, their holiday pay, their promotions, the fact they could be sacked is controlled by the man who should be most investigated”
Jennings likens this chamber to Pyongyang and the Joseph Stalin trials of the 1930’s.
“You, the public, are not allowed to see the evidence,” he said. “You’re not allowed to know. It’s none of your business.”
PART 6
The sixth and final installment of Jennings’ series for Unscriptd.com features him bringing things full circle with the Olympics and how the Olympic games will further burden Brazilian taxpayers.
“The taxpayers’ money has gone into these fantastically unnecessary stadia,” Jennings said. “At the end of the World Cup, FIFA will depart Brazil with their big sacks of swag, their billions of dollars. Still there won’t be a hospital for that father with his sick child.”
With the Qatar controversy still unraveling, protests continuing and the World Cup just days await, fans and the world will be watching a little bit closer in 2014.
For those who are interested, Andrew Jennings’ book “Omerta – Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family” can be purchased here.
