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Sam Skansi
Amy Rossi
English 2000
30 September 2015
Corruptions Reign on Major Sports
With great power comes great responsibility, and for the
International Federation of Association Football, or FIFA, that seems to
be a neglected proverb. For years, FIFA has been apart of business
deals that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, is now deeming
to be more than unethical. The dealings between FIFA and Qatar
opened the door to corruption investigations and led to many charges
and convictions of FIFA executives. These events shine light on
corruption in major sports and ask the question of whether corruption
in major sports can be stopped and reformed.
Qatar was chosen, by FIFA executives, to be the host for the
2022 FIFA World Cup Tournament. This small, middle-eastern country
was amongst a few other countries including, Australia, Japan, South
Korea, and the United States for candidates of host for the tournament,
and despite not being the best choice still claimed the necessary
votes. This raised red flags with a lot of people and FIFA began to face
many claims of corruption and bribery. Kate Youd states, The vote for
Qatar--- an illogical choice given the weather conditions, human rights
violations, and lack of existing footballing facilities--- only enhanced

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the claim (Youd 171). Qatar is not only missing the proper facilities to
house a World Cup, but it also has serious issues with the weather
during the tournaments usual time slot of June to July. Because of
Qatars incredible heat during the summer, the tournament will be
moved into the winter to be play in December and January. Peter
Coates, chairman of Stoke City F.C., was asked about how this change
would affect the clubs. He said, It is going to be very messy. We have
to make the best of a bad job (2022 World Cup N.p.). Putting the
worlds largest football tournament right in the middle of prime
European League Football is detrimental to the coaches and players,
and it seems to be a glaring problem in the selection of Qatar as host.
One of the people in the spotlight of corruption in the Qatar
investigation is Mohamed Bin Hammam, a senior Qatari official at FIFA.
Hammam was recently banned for life from any involvement with
football after evidence appeared that he had bribed senior officials at
the Caribbean Football Union at the height of his campaign for FIFA
President (Corruption Watch 45). Agustino Fontevecchia, of Forbes,
claims, Bin Hammam is seen as instrumental in having helped Qatar
secured the 2022 World Cup, and is accused of handing out bribes to
garner support for a personal candidacy for the presidency of FIFA
(Fontevecchia N.p.). With Hammams ban, Qatars questionable
selection, and some key arrest of FIFA executives and associates it was

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only time until somebody began to investigate FIFAs actions, and the
FBI was the group to do it.
With long-running claims of illegal acts and corruption swirling
around FIFA, the FBI jumped briskly on the opportunity to investigate
the organization. For three years, the FBI investigated FIFA and have
successfully indicted 14 current and former FIFA officials and
associates. BBC News reported, A 47- count indictment unveiled in a
US federal court in New York charges 14 defendants with racketeering,
wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies in what it describes as
the defendants participation in a 24- year scheme to enrich
themselves through the corruption of international football (FIFA
Corruption Crisis N.p.). The reason for the delayed investigation of FIFA
is still unknown, but with, well over $150m in bribes and other illegal
payments to obtains lucrative media and marketing rights it is no
wonder why they begun the investigation (Fontevecchia N.p.). James
Comey, the FBI Director, said in a statement, The defendants fostered
a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field
for the biggest sport in the world (Botelho N.p.). As more and more
corruption occurred, FIFA began to become an untouchable
organization that kept their culture of corruption quiet for so long. With
the FBIs open investigation, however, old secrets began to come out
and reveal more corruption than previously expected. The FBI went
back through the past twenty years of business dealings and

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uncovered a bunch of skeletons in FIFAs closet including bribes in
connection with broadcast rights in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2003
(FIFA Corruption Crisis). With the amount of events that FIFA organized
throughout the past twenty years, the amount of corruption that is
possible is truly great. This investigation has been taken very seriously
and has uncovered years of corruption, but with the discovery of
corruption dating back so far it poses the question of whether
corruption will always be a thing in major sports or if it can be stopped.
Corruption is no new thing for FIFA. Betting on games, taking
bribes, and even fixing games are just a few of the things that have
always been plaguing the organization throughout history. Football isnt
the only sport that faces these issues though and corruption has been
found in other sports including, baseball, American football, basketball,
and even the Olympics. From the performance enhancing drug
scandals surrounding baseball to the Salt Lake Scandal surrounding the
2002 Winter Olympics bid selection, the evidence of corruption is
clearly evident. The question at hand, however, is how can corruption
in sports that are so big be eliminated? Well, in FIFAs case, the
selection process could most certainly be reevaluated. Seeing as most
of the bribes came from some sort of selection process it spotlights the
fact that there might be a problem in that sector. Yuan Guoying
suggests that, FIFA should establish a special investigation team to
comprehensively evaluate the infrastructure and human & geographic

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environment, and make the hosting completion more fairly (Guoying
N.p.). Another thing that needs to be evaluated in trying to eliminate
corruption is the strength of the organizations interior management.
For example, in light of the Salt Lake Scandal, the president of the
International Olympic Committee created a reform that permitted
committee members visit candidate cities, and only allowed for the
hosting delegation to investigate the cities and the process of bidding
(N.p.). Reforms such as these would hold particular members of
management more accountable for their actions and provide a more
stable, structured, and less corrupt legislation processes. Now,
although these situations dont necessarily apply to all other sports
organizations, FIFA, being the largest sports organization in the world,
is a great precedent for the adoption of similar tactics. Provisions such
as these, although not totally universal, could benefit the world of
sports greatly by adding previously unheard of securities to some of
the most corrupt processes in sports.
It goes without doubt that corruption is present in major sports
organizations. The FBI investigations of FIFA have opened up doors to
the corruption scandal that has left many senior executives facing
charges in United States courts. Although the corruption isnt exclusive
to FIFA and spreads to many other sports organizations, with the
correct provisions to the selection process and other executive

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decisions, such as strengthening interior management, corruption
might become a thing of the past for some of these organizations.

Work Cited
2022 World Cup Final on 18 December. BBC Sport. N.p., 19 Mar.
2015. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
"Corruption Watch." Sport & Law Journal 21.1 (2013): 6683. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.

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FIFA Corruption Crisis: Key Questions Answered BBC News. BBC
News. N.p., 2 July 2015. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.
Botelho, Greg. FIFA Corruption Marks World Cup of Fraud CNN. Cable
News Network, 28 May 2015. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
Fontevecchia, Agustino. "FIFA Corruption Scandal: Follow The Money To
Qatar." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 29 May 2015. Web. 02 Sept.
2015.
Guoying, Yuan, et al. Strategies To Avoid Corruptions in FIFA.
International Journal Of Buisness And Management 6 (2011):
Directory of Open Access Journals. Web. 10 Sept. 2015
Youd, Kate. "The Winter's Tale Of Corruption: The 2022 FIFA World Cup
In Qatar, The Impending Shift To Winter, And Potential Legal
Actions Against FIFA."Northwestern Journal Of International Law
& Business 35.1 (2014): 167-197. Legal Collection. Web. 3 Sept.
2015.