How FIFA corrupted the World Cup
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Published 2022-11-23
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On December 2, 2010, FIFA announced the 2022 World Cup would take place in a surprising country, Qatar. At that same meeting, they also announced that the 2018 World Cup would take place in Russia. These selections set off a new chapter in FIFA’s history, one where the public would have a greater sense on how bribery and corruption have a huge role in who gets to host this international sporting event.
The last 14 World Cup locations were decided by a group of 24 powerful men within FIFA called the executive committee. Their votes meant a lot to bidding nations and allegations on bidders bribing members of the committee lingered for decades. These allegations reached a new level when criminal investigations were launched nearly five years after that FIFA announcement. The fallout of these investigations nearly broke FIFA and tainted the World Cup.
Watch the latest episode of Vox Atlas to understand how FIFA corrupted the World Cup host selection process.
Sources:
We found this book written and edited by dozens of football experts very helpful for understanding the financial history of FIFA and the World Cup:
The Business of the FIFA World Cup edited by Simon Chadwick, Paul Widdop, Christos Anagnostopoulos, Daniel Parnell
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/978100312…
We used this research article to create charts showing the World Cup’s financial success in it’s early days:
Financing World Football. A Business History of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) by Heidrun Homburg
www.jstor.org/stable/40696431
This book by one of our experts in the video is a great primer to understanding how both Russia and Qatar won their World Cup bids in 2010:
Whatever It Takes: The Inside Story of the FIFA Way by Bonita Mersiades
www.fairplaypublishing.com.au/products/whatever-it…
We used these FIFA financial reports to determine World Cup revenue since 2002:
digitalhub.fifa.com/m/337fab75839abc76/original/xz…
digitalhub.fifa.com/m/6d29dfb0f8a0e4ad/original/e4…
digitalhub.fifa.com/m/605abd94a1bc476f/original/mi… digitalhub.fifa.com/m/114402613edaae50/original/zq…
digitalhub.fifa.com/m/10e86ad2eaf02dab/original/qk…
This table helped us keep track of the number of votes each bid winner received:
digitalhub.fifa.com/m/5f5dbf795d42276c/original/is…
We based our promised stadium maps off locations listed in these bid evaluations:
digitalhub.fifa.com/m/432d03e6cc358cf6/original/mj…
digitalhub.fifa.com/m/3041e390c9c0afea/original/fd…
For more context on why football is important to the Middle East, we recommending checking out this book:
Football in the Middle East: State, Society, and The Beautiful Game by Abdullah Al-Arian
www.hurstpublishers.com/book/football-in-the-middl…
All Comments (21)
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Lets be real, when someone says "Lobbying" it usually means bribing... especially when we are talking about politicians.
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For FIFA it's NOT about the sport. It's about making money and filling their pockets.
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I feel that every person in power is corrupt wether it be in a sporting event or in a political sense
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A lot of people and apparently Vox have forgotten that Mexico, who is in North America and not South America, hosted the world cup twice in 1970 and 1986. Which would mean that the first time Fifa hosted the world cup outside of South America and Europe was in 1970.
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I really appreciate Vox calling the game 'football' instead of 'soccer'!
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“Lobbying” was a term created for no purpose other than normalizing bribery.
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I find it funny how they just admitted that literally every world cup bid since the beginning had been illicit but still kept on talking about only Russia and Qatar :3
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Anywhere there's alot of money there is corruption somewhere
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The Australian taxpayers are still waiting for the return of $50million from FIFA, considering there was zero chance Australia could actually win the bid.
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Great example for how power and lots of money ALWAYS corrupt people.
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This was something made blatant to me when Rio/brazil won the bid for the Olympics for 2016 and the world cup in 2014. A city and country notorious for decimating human rights. They destroyed entire favelas for stadiums without any new emergency housing construction and now their stadiums are literally derelict. Considering the Olympics IOC is also an organisation based in Switzerland and it works eerily similar to the FIFA exec board. Corruption in sport is blatant.
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They don't just corrupt the event, but also the matches. As long as their pockets are lined they will continue this shameless practice.
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Very strange to not even mention 2014 cup here in Brazil... altough I can imagine it would derail the conversation to other topics equally bad, like useless infrastructure abandoned after the event or forcefully moving away communities to build stadiums. Not to mention that we're in a very hot time politically over here
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This was an absolutely fascinating breakdown of FIFA, I knew it was corrupt but this is on a whole other level.
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Its called the world cup, it should be played in different countries not the same countries....
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Why don't you talk about the first time when Italy hosted the world cup under the pressure of their government before the second world war and they paid money to the referee 😊
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This goes into the history of FIFA better than FIFA's own United Passion.
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I think the public were willing to overlook Russia as they have a healthy domestic league with good teams that can compete in Europe, a real football culture, and a strong international team with some well known players who play for prestigious clubs. Just from a football perspective, it makes sense that Russia could host a World Cup. Qatar being awarded the World Cup is just so obviously ridiculous on its face, even to people unaware of the backdoor shenanigans.
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2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 were shady as well. They even investigated against Franz Beckenbauer for the World Cup in Germany. "mysteriously" nothing came out of it and now he is too sick for a year long trial anyways
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You said it only now. It happens for a long time. Mainly the players that are connected with all kinds of messed up things. The Brazilian 2014 world cup was one of the most corrupt. Panis et circenses. It is all a big show for the herd.
