It's the official body responsible for regulating the world's most popular sport, but it is regularly accused of corruption.
In this episode, we'll look at why this is, some of the biggest scandals in FIFA history, and see what the organisation is doing to clean itself up.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are talking about the governing body of the world’s most popular sport, an organisation with more member states than the United Nations, making it by some standards the world’s biggest non-governmental organisation.
[00:00:36] We are talking, of course, about FIFA.
[00:00:39] But despite its position atop the world’s most popular sport, FIFA is also widely regarded as corrupt, described by some as being run like a ‘mafia family’.
[00:00:52] So, in this episode we will ask ourselves, how could that be?
[00:00:57] How could it be that the beautiful game, as football is known by billions of fans around the world, is run by such a dirty organisation?
[00:01:06] OK then, let’s get into it and talk about FIFA: the most corrupt name in sport.
[00:01:17] In July of 2015, a man named Sepp Blatter sat at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, in Switzerland.
[00:01:27] At the time, Blatter was the most senior man in world football, and he was preparing to give a press conference.
[00:01:36] In his hands were some papers, and to his left another official.
[00:01:42] Behind him was the FIFA symbol in white against a blue backdrop.
[00:01:48] As they prepared for the press conference, Blatter looked down and read through his notes.
[00:01:55] But then, out of nowhere, a man appeared and walked onto the stage.
[00:02:01] As he got closer to Blatter, it became clear that his hands were stuffed full of dollar bills.
[00:02:08] “North Korea 2026,” the man shouted, putting a wedge of money on the desk.
[00:02:15] Blatter and his colleague looked up, and then nervously to their left, off the stage.
[00:02:21] “Security!” Blatter said. “Security, come on! Where is my security?”
[00:02:27] The intruder turned to the crowd and faced the world’s media.
[00:02:32] “As North Korean football ambassador,” he said, “I’m delighted… I think this seals the deal with FIFA and North Korea for the 2026 World Cup.”
[00:02:42] As two security guards quickly made their way onto the stage, the man turned to Blatter and threw another handful of cash high into the air.
[00:02:53] As dollar bills rained down, spiralling through the air and all over the floor and the desk, the man added, “Cheers, Sepp. It’s all there as discussed.”
[00:03:04] The man was escorted, removed from the stage, and Blatter stood up, unsure what to do next.
[00:03:12] After regaining his composure, he walked off the stage briefly and then reappeared at another podium.
[00:03:20] Leaning into a microphone, he explained that before the press conference could begin, they would need to clean up.
[00:03:27] “This,” Blatter said, “has nothing to do with football.”
[00:03:33] So, if that truly had nothing to do with football, what statement was the man trying to make?
[00:03:40] What was that all about?
[00:03:42] Well, before we get into the modern accusations of corruption, we should first consider a bit of history and context so we can understand what exactly FIFA is and what it’s supposed to do.
[00:03:56] As you will probably know, many countries and cultures claim to have “invented” football, playing some sort of game where a ball-like object needs to be kicked towards a target.
[00:04:09] But what we understand to be football today, with teams and rules and something resembling the modern game, was created in England in the 1860s.
[00:04:21] By the 20th century, it had become popular not just as a club sport, that is, played between teams in the same country, but as an international spectacle.
[00:04:33] With a growing fanbase demanding more international fixtures, in May of 1904, the Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, was founded in Paris.
[00:04:46] Its purpose was to regulate national football associations, organise international football matches between countries, standardise the rules, and promote the sport across the world. The football police, if you will.
[00:05:02] The founding members were France, of course, along with Spain, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.
[00:05:10] The Germans joined soon after, the English a year later in 1906, and over the next few years FIFA membership grew.
[00:05:20] The first World Cup was to be held in Uruguay in 1930, but even back then FIFA’s decisions about which country should host the tournament were controversial.
[00:05:33] Uruguay, a tiny South American nation, was given the tournament because it had won the last two football gold medals at the Olympics, and because 1930 was the 100 year anniversary of its first constitution.
[00:05:48] Fair enough, you might say, but not everyone was happy.
[00:05:53] Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, and Hungary refused to participate in the tournament, claiming the journey was too long and expensive, and the final between Argentina and Uruguay was marred by death threats against players.
[00:06:08] Not the best start, you might say.
[00:06:11] But despite all that, football, as you will know, continued to grow throughout the rest of the 20th century, and it’s now the most popular sport in the world by practically every metric.
[00:06:24] According to FIFA’s own figures, football is now played by over 150 million registered players, and the number who play and watch casually runs into the billions.
[00:06:37] And by 2022, FIFA had grown to a whopping 211 member states, more than the United Nations, which only has 193.
[00:06:48] So, FIFA literally has a monopoly on the world’s most popular sport, and is responsible for regulating an industry worth billions of dollars.
[00:06:58] And, as you will know, it has something of a reputation for playing dirty, for corruption.
[00:07:06] To quote the former chairman of the English Football Association, Lord Triesman, the organisation operates like a "mafia family”, and has a - I'm quoting directly - "decades-long tradition of bribes, bungs and corruption".
[00:07:23] A ‘bung’, by the way, is a synonym for a bribe, or a payment made to convince someone to do something, often illegal or unethical.
[00:07:32] So, was this just the musings of a disgruntled Englishman, or is there any evidence that FIFA is as corrupt as he claimed?
[00:07:42] Well, as the expression goes, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”, meaning that accusations are rarely made without some truth behind them.
[00:07:53] And as it turns out, there are plenty of scandals and accusations that have been made against football’s most powerful organisation.
[00:08:03] And when it comes to these scandals, these allegations of bribery and corruption, they almost always come down to FIFA’s main responsibility: the choice of which country gets to host the FIFA World Cup.
[00:08:17] It might have been controversial back in 1930, but now everything has been dialled up a notch, it has become more important due to the enormous sums of money involved.
[00:08:30] Television and sponsorship deals run into the hundreds of millions, and for the countries that actually host the tournaments, the World Cup is a massive boost to its tourism and hospitality sectors.
[00:08:43] With billions watching, it is perhaps the greatest advertising opportunity any country can wish for, right up there if not more important than the Olympics.
[00:08:54] It’s hardly surprising then, that some countries will do just about anything to get a World Cup.
[00:09:02] We’ll look at a few of these scandals in a minute, but first of all, let me just address the question of how FIFA actually chooses what country hosts a World Cup?
[00:09:13] Now it’s a more equal process, with every FIFA member state having one vote, and the voting continues until one bid has a majority of the vote.
[00:09:25] But until recently, the decision was made by a 24-person executive committee, and if there was a tie for first place, the president, which was until recently Sepp Blatter, would have a deciding vote.
[00:09:41] Importantly, the votes were anonymous so it wasn't public which member of the committee voted for which country.
[00:09:50] Taking a sceptic’s view here, this makes it ripe for corruption, as a member of the committee could theoretically accept a bribe and vote for a proposal without it ever being revealed that it was them who voted for that proposal.
[00:10:06] But they would never do that, I hear you say, these are some of the most professional and best-regarded footballing executives in the world!
[00:10:16] Well, I said that the committee was 24 people, but even that had to change after two members of the committee were busted, or caught, trying to sell their votes to journalists working on an undercover story in 2010.
[00:10:32] I should say here, there have been allegations about FIFA committee members taking money for their votes since the 1980s, but there was never really any concrete evidence.
[00:10:45] People suspected that it happened, but could never prove it. After all, the votes were anonymous, it was very hard to prove.
[00:10:53] That was until the summer of 2015, when an American federal investigation shook the football world to its core and charged 14 FIFA officials with money laundering, racketeering, and fraud.
[00:11:11] The defendants, which included high-ranking FIFA officials and even executive committee members, were involved in, and I’m quoting directly, "a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer”.
[00:11:28] And we’re not just talking about a few dollars here.
[00:11:32] According to estimates from the US Justice department, the 14 indicted FIFA members had accepted $150m over two and a half decades.
[00:11:44] The beautiful game, as many had feared, was dirty to its very core.
[00:11:51] So, how did this all come out, how was it revealed?
[00:11:56] It’s all thanks to a man named Chuck Blazer, the former top official in American football, who gave information to the US investigation.
[00:12:06] He claimed that between 2004 and 2011 several top FIFA committee members took bribes in return for choosing South Africa as the host of the 2010 World Cup.
[00:12:19] He even claimed that the former Vice-President of FIFA, Jack Warner, took a $10 million bribe from South African officials for his vote.
[00:12:28] So, if you were wondering how much a vote costs, $10 million is your answer in Jack Warner’s case.
[00:12:37] Blazer also claimed that Warner bribed other FIFA officials to support the South African bid with envelopes of cash containing as much as $40,000.
[00:12:49] Incredibly, when one official rejected Warner’s envelopes, he is reported to have said: "There are some people here who think they are more pious than thou. If you're pious, open a church, friends. Our business is our business.”
[00:13:06] Translating this into plain English, if you’re in FIFA and concerned about corruption, you’d be better off opening a church.
[00:13:15] The South African government, of course, insisted that these were payments to promote Caribbean football, but Warner used the money to rack up credit card debts, give himself personal loans, and withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[00:13:31] And by the way, Chuck Blazer, the whistleblower who revealed all of this information and set the wheels in motion?
[00:13:39] He was no angel.
[00:13:41] He was forced to inform on his former colleagues after he was found to have accepted a million-dollar bribe to vote for South Africa, and he pled guilty to racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering.
[00:13:55] He only cracked and talked to the authorities in order to reduce his own sentence.
[00:14:01] And as more and more evidence was found, it became clear that South Africa was far from the only country to win a World Cup “under the table”, partly or entirely by bribing FIFA committee members.
[00:14:17] Now, you will remember that the last two World Cups were not held in countries traditionally known for their footballing history or culture: Russia and Qatar, and they were both “surprise” winners of the World Cup vote.
[00:14:33] In Russia’s case, it was up against England, and joint bids from Belgium and the Netherlands, and then another joint bid from Portugal and Spain.
[00:14:44] And in Qatar’s case, it was up against Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
[00:14:51] So, how did they get the World Cups?
[00:14:55] If you ask the FIFA committee members who voted for them, they would no doubt tell you that Russia and Qatar presented the best proposals, and an opportunity to promote and develop football in new regions.
[00:15:08] If you ask other people, you might get different answers, and they might suggest that several members of the voting committee took other factors into account.
[00:15:19] Specifically, the main, or perhaps only factor, was how much they would personally be paid for their vote.
[00:15:28] According to a BBC investigation, three senior FIFA officials who voted on the 2018 tournament, which was awarded to Russia, as well as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, had taken bribes back in the 1990s.
[00:15:44] And we aren’t talking about accepting a free holiday or concert tickets.
[00:15:48] We are talking cold, hard cash, bribes that allegedly totalled around $100m.
[00:15:56] So, committee members who had been taking millions in bribes over the years were allowed to stay in their positions and vote on these World Cups.
[00:16:06] And in the 21st century, the stakes were a lot higher, the sums of money involved were a lot greater.
[00:16:13] Do you think these allegedly corrupt officials would change their ways, and their votes would go on merit alone?
[00:16:21] Well, according to U.S. prosecutors, at least five members of FIFA’s top committee accepted bribes ahead of the 2010 vote to choose Russia and Qatar as hosts.
[00:16:34] In the case of Qatar, it is alleged that a former FIFA executive committee member from Qatar, Mohammed bin Hammam, paid millions in bribes to his former colleagues in order to get the tournament for his homeland, a tiny desert nation with no footballing culture or history to speak of.
[00:16:53] These included three South American officials, from Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, who allegedly received large bribes to vote for Qatar.
[00:17:04] And as for the decision to award the World Cup to Russia, prosecutors also believed that Jack Warner [yes, him again], that he was given $5 million to vote for Russia.
[00:17:17] And as for the fifth corrupt official, a Guatemalan committee member who was found guilty of fraud and money laundering in 2016 was also promised $1 million to give his vote to Russia, according to the report.
[00:17:32] And to reiterate, these are five that have been caught, or at least accused.
[00:17:38] Who knows how many other FIFA officials were involved in all of this?
[00:17:44] And to put it another way, since the FIFA executive committee voted in 2010, 16 of the 22 members have been investigated or accused of corruption.
[00:17:56] So if this organisation is indeed run like a “mafia family”, how was this all allowed to go on for so long?
[00:18:05] Well, to answer this question, we need to look at the head of the family, the man we met at the very beginning of this episode.
[00:18:14] Sepp Blatter.
[00:18:16] And Blatter, who spent 17 years as the most senior man in FIFA, has long been accused of corruption.
[00:18:24] In fact, even Blatter’s election as FIFA president all the way back in 1998, as well as his subsequent reelection campaigns, have been linked to corruption and vote rigging.
[00:18:36] The Vice-President of the Confederation of African Football claimed he had been offered $100,000 to vote for Blatter in 1998.
[00:18:45] And when it came to his reelection in 2011, Blatter’s only opponent was Mohamed bin Hammam, the man who allegedly bought Qatar the 2022 World Cup.
[00:18:58] Bin Hammam eventually dropped out of the election and Blatter was elected unopposed, but he only led FIFA for another four years before he was forced to step down when he was put under criminal investigation.
[00:19:12] And throughout all the indictments and investigations, all the controversy over Russia and Qatar, Sepp Blatter has reiterated his famous line, as he did that day on stage in Switzerland, that money has ‘nothing to do with football.’
[00:19:30] All I’ll say is that I’ll leave you to be the judge of that.
[00:19:36] Ok then, that is it for today’s episode on FIFA, by some people’s standards the most corrupt name in sport.
[00:19:44] For the football fans, I’m sure you knew quite a lot of this already, and if you’re not a football fan, well, I hope it was an interesting exploration into this organisation that governs the world’s most popular sport.
[00:19:58] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:20:01] Do you think FIFA is as bad as people claim it is?
[00:20:05] Do you think that the changes to the voting system will fix this corruption, or simply open it up further?
[00:20:12] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:15] You can head right into our community forum and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:21] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:26] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are talking about the governing body of the world’s most popular sport, an organisation with more member states than the United Nations, making it by some standards the world’s biggest non-governmental organisation.
[00:00:36] We are talking, of course, about FIFA.
[00:00:39] But despite its position atop the world’s most popular sport, FIFA is also widely regarded as corrupt, described by some as being run like a ‘mafia family’.
[00:00:52] So, in this episode we will ask ourselves, how could that be?
[00:00:57] How could it be that the beautiful game, as football is known by billions of fans around the world, is run by such a dirty organisation?
[00:01:06] OK then, let’s get into it and talk about FIFA: the most corrupt name in sport.
[00:01:17] In July of 2015, a man named Sepp Blatter sat at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, in Switzerland.
[00:01:27] At the time, Blatter was the most senior man in world football, and he was preparing to give a press conference.
[00:01:36] In his hands were some papers, and to his left another official.
[00:01:42] Behind him was the FIFA symbol in white against a blue backdrop.
[00:01:48] As they prepared for the press conference, Blatter looked down and read through his notes.
[00:01:55] But then, out of nowhere, a man appeared and walked onto the stage.
[00:02:01] As he got closer to Blatter, it became clear that his hands were stuffed full of dollar bills.
[00:02:08] “North Korea 2026,” the man shouted, putting a wedge of money on the desk.
[00:02:15] Blatter and his colleague looked up, and then nervously to their left, off the stage.
[00:02:21] “Security!” Blatter said. “Security, come on! Where is my security?”
[00:02:27] The intruder turned to the crowd and faced the world’s media.
[00:02:32] “As North Korean football ambassador,” he said, “I’m delighted… I think this seals the deal with FIFA and North Korea for the 2026 World Cup.”
[00:02:42] As two security guards quickly made their way onto the stage, the man turned to Blatter and threw another handful of cash high into the air.
[00:02:53] As dollar bills rained down, spiralling through the air and all over the floor and the desk, the man added, “Cheers, Sepp. It’s all there as discussed.”
[00:03:04] The man was escorted, removed from the stage, and Blatter stood up, unsure what to do next.
[00:03:12] After regaining his composure, he walked off the stage briefly and then reappeared at another podium.
[00:03:20] Leaning into a microphone, he explained that before the press conference could begin, they would need to clean up.
[00:03:27] “This,” Blatter said, “has nothing to do with football.”
[00:03:33] So, if that truly had nothing to do with football, what statement was the man trying to make?
[00:03:40] What was that all about?
[00:03:42] Well, before we get into the modern accusations of corruption, we should first consider a bit of history and context so we can understand what exactly FIFA is and what it’s supposed to do.
[00:03:56] As you will probably know, many countries and cultures claim to have “invented” football, playing some sort of game where a ball-like object needs to be kicked towards a target.
[00:04:09] But what we understand to be football today, with teams and rules and something resembling the modern game, was created in England in the 1860s.
[00:04:21] By the 20th century, it had become popular not just as a club sport, that is, played between teams in the same country, but as an international spectacle.
[00:04:33] With a growing fanbase demanding more international fixtures, in May of 1904, the Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, was founded in Paris.
[00:04:46] Its purpose was to regulate national football associations, organise international football matches between countries, standardise the rules, and promote the sport across the world. The football police, if you will.
[00:05:02] The founding members were France, of course, along with Spain, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.
[00:05:10] The Germans joined soon after, the English a year later in 1906, and over the next few years FIFA membership grew.
[00:05:20] The first World Cup was to be held in Uruguay in 1930, but even back then FIFA’s decisions about which country should host the tournament were controversial.
[00:05:33] Uruguay, a tiny South American nation, was given the tournament because it had won the last two football gold medals at the Olympics, and because 1930 was the 100 year anniversary of its first constitution.
[00:05:48] Fair enough, you might say, but not everyone was happy.
[00:05:53] Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, and Hungary refused to participate in the tournament, claiming the journey was too long and expensive, and the final between Argentina and Uruguay was marred by death threats against players.
[00:06:08] Not the best start, you might say.
[00:06:11] But despite all that, football, as you will know, continued to grow throughout the rest of the 20th century, and it’s now the most popular sport in the world by practically every metric.
[00:06:24] According to FIFA’s own figures, football is now played by over 150 million registered players, and the number who play and watch casually runs into the billions.
[00:06:37] And by 2022, FIFA had grown to a whopping 211 member states, more than the United Nations, which only has 193.
[00:06:48] So, FIFA literally has a monopoly on the world’s most popular sport, and is responsible for regulating an industry worth billions of dollars.
[00:06:58] And, as you will know, it has something of a reputation for playing dirty, for corruption.
[00:07:06] To quote the former chairman of the English Football Association, Lord Triesman, the organisation operates like a "mafia family”, and has a - I'm quoting directly - "decades-long tradition of bribes, bungs and corruption".
[00:07:23] A ‘bung’, by the way, is a synonym for a bribe, or a payment made to convince someone to do something, often illegal or unethical.
[00:07:32] So, was this just the musings of a disgruntled Englishman, or is there any evidence that FIFA is as corrupt as he claimed?
[00:07:42] Well, as the expression goes, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”, meaning that accusations are rarely made without some truth behind them.
[00:07:53] And as it turns out, there are plenty of scandals and accusations that have been made against football’s most powerful organisation.
[00:08:03] And when it comes to these scandals, these allegations of bribery and corruption, they almost always come down to FIFA’s main responsibility: the choice of which country gets to host the FIFA World Cup.
[00:08:17] It might have been controversial back in 1930, but now everything has been dialled up a notch, it has become more important due to the enormous sums of money involved.
[00:08:30] Television and sponsorship deals run into the hundreds of millions, and for the countries that actually host the tournaments, the World Cup is a massive boost to its tourism and hospitality sectors.
[00:08:43] With billions watching, it is perhaps the greatest advertising opportunity any country can wish for, right up there if not more important than the Olympics.
[00:08:54] It’s hardly surprising then, that some countries will do just about anything to get a World Cup.
[00:09:02] We’ll look at a few of these scandals in a minute, but first of all, let me just address the question of how FIFA actually chooses what country hosts a World Cup?
[00:09:13] Now it’s a more equal process, with every FIFA member state having one vote, and the voting continues until one bid has a majority of the vote.
[00:09:25] But until recently, the decision was made by a 24-person executive committee, and if there was a tie for first place, the president, which was until recently Sepp Blatter, would have a deciding vote.
[00:09:41] Importantly, the votes were anonymous so it wasn't public which member of the committee voted for which country.
[00:09:50] Taking a sceptic’s view here, this makes it ripe for corruption, as a member of the committee could theoretically accept a bribe and vote for a proposal without it ever being revealed that it was them who voted for that proposal.
[00:10:06] But they would never do that, I hear you say, these are some of the most professional and best-regarded footballing executives in the world!
[00:10:16] Well, I said that the committee was 24 people, but even that had to change after two members of the committee were busted, or caught, trying to sell their votes to journalists working on an undercover story in 2010.
[00:10:32] I should say here, there have been allegations about FIFA committee members taking money for their votes since the 1980s, but there was never really any concrete evidence.
[00:10:45] People suspected that it happened, but could never prove it. After all, the votes were anonymous, it was very hard to prove.
[00:10:53] That was until the summer of 2015, when an American federal investigation shook the football world to its core and charged 14 FIFA officials with money laundering, racketeering, and fraud.
[00:11:11] The defendants, which included high-ranking FIFA officials and even executive committee members, were involved in, and I’m quoting directly, "a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer”.
[00:11:28] And we’re not just talking about a few dollars here.
[00:11:32] According to estimates from the US Justice department, the 14 indicted FIFA members had accepted $150m over two and a half decades.
[00:11:44] The beautiful game, as many had feared, was dirty to its very core.
[00:11:51] So, how did this all come out, how was it revealed?
[00:11:56] It’s all thanks to a man named Chuck Blazer, the former top official in American football, who gave information to the US investigation.
[00:12:06] He claimed that between 2004 and 2011 several top FIFA committee members took bribes in return for choosing South Africa as the host of the 2010 World Cup.
[00:12:19] He even claimed that the former Vice-President of FIFA, Jack Warner, took a $10 million bribe from South African officials for his vote.
[00:12:28] So, if you were wondering how much a vote costs, $10 million is your answer in Jack Warner’s case.
[00:12:37] Blazer also claimed that Warner bribed other FIFA officials to support the South African bid with envelopes of cash containing as much as $40,000.
[00:12:49] Incredibly, when one official rejected Warner’s envelopes, he is reported to have said: "There are some people here who think they are more pious than thou. If you're pious, open a church, friends. Our business is our business.”
[00:13:06] Translating this into plain English, if you’re in FIFA and concerned about corruption, you’d be better off opening a church.
[00:13:15] The South African government, of course, insisted that these were payments to promote Caribbean football, but Warner used the money to rack up credit card debts, give himself personal loans, and withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[00:13:31] And by the way, Chuck Blazer, the whistleblower who revealed all of this information and set the wheels in motion?
[00:13:39] He was no angel.
[00:13:41] He was forced to inform on his former colleagues after he was found to have accepted a million-dollar bribe to vote for South Africa, and he pled guilty to racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering.
[00:13:55] He only cracked and talked to the authorities in order to reduce his own sentence.
[00:14:01] And as more and more evidence was found, it became clear that South Africa was far from the only country to win a World Cup “under the table”, partly or entirely by bribing FIFA committee members.
[00:14:17] Now, you will remember that the last two World Cups were not held in countries traditionally known for their footballing history or culture: Russia and Qatar, and they were both “surprise” winners of the World Cup vote.
[00:14:33] In Russia’s case, it was up against England, and joint bids from Belgium and the Netherlands, and then another joint bid from Portugal and Spain.
[00:14:44] And in Qatar’s case, it was up against Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
[00:14:51] So, how did they get the World Cups?
[00:14:55] If you ask the FIFA committee members who voted for them, they would no doubt tell you that Russia and Qatar presented the best proposals, and an opportunity to promote and develop football in new regions.
[00:15:08] If you ask other people, you might get different answers, and they might suggest that several members of the voting committee took other factors into account.
[00:15:19] Specifically, the main, or perhaps only factor, was how much they would personally be paid for their vote.
[00:15:28] According to a BBC investigation, three senior FIFA officials who voted on the 2018 tournament, which was awarded to Russia, as well as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, had taken bribes back in the 1990s.
[00:15:44] And we aren’t talking about accepting a free holiday or concert tickets.
[00:15:48] We are talking cold, hard cash, bribes that allegedly totalled around $100m.
[00:15:56] So, committee members who had been taking millions in bribes over the years were allowed to stay in their positions and vote on these World Cups.
[00:16:06] And in the 21st century, the stakes were a lot higher, the sums of money involved were a lot greater.
[00:16:13] Do you think these allegedly corrupt officials would change their ways, and their votes would go on merit alone?
[00:16:21] Well, according to U.S. prosecutors, at least five members of FIFA’s top committee accepted bribes ahead of the 2010 vote to choose Russia and Qatar as hosts.
[00:16:34] In the case of Qatar, it is alleged that a former FIFA executive committee member from Qatar, Mohammed bin Hammam, paid millions in bribes to his former colleagues in order to get the tournament for his homeland, a tiny desert nation with no footballing culture or history to speak of.
[00:16:53] These included three South American officials, from Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, who allegedly received large bribes to vote for Qatar.
[00:17:04] And as for the decision to award the World Cup to Russia, prosecutors also believed that Jack Warner [yes, him again], that he was given $5 million to vote for Russia.
[00:17:17] And as for the fifth corrupt official, a Guatemalan committee member who was found guilty of fraud and money laundering in 2016 was also promised $1 million to give his vote to Russia, according to the report.
[00:17:32] And to reiterate, these are five that have been caught, or at least accused.
[00:17:38] Who knows how many other FIFA officials were involved in all of this?
[00:17:44] And to put it another way, since the FIFA executive committee voted in 2010, 16 of the 22 members have been investigated or accused of corruption.
[00:17:56] So if this organisation is indeed run like a “mafia family”, how was this all allowed to go on for so long?
[00:18:05] Well, to answer this question, we need to look at the head of the family, the man we met at the very beginning of this episode.
[00:18:14] Sepp Blatter.
[00:18:16] And Blatter, who spent 17 years as the most senior man in FIFA, has long been accused of corruption.
[00:18:24] In fact, even Blatter’s election as FIFA president all the way back in 1998, as well as his subsequent reelection campaigns, have been linked to corruption and vote rigging.
[00:18:36] The Vice-President of the Confederation of African Football claimed he had been offered $100,000 to vote for Blatter in 1998.
[00:18:45] And when it came to his reelection in 2011, Blatter’s only opponent was Mohamed bin Hammam, the man who allegedly bought Qatar the 2022 World Cup.
[00:18:58] Bin Hammam eventually dropped out of the election and Blatter was elected unopposed, but he only led FIFA for another four years before he was forced to step down when he was put under criminal investigation.
[00:19:12] And throughout all the indictments and investigations, all the controversy over Russia and Qatar, Sepp Blatter has reiterated his famous line, as he did that day on stage in Switzerland, that money has ‘nothing to do with football.’
[00:19:30] All I’ll say is that I’ll leave you to be the judge of that.
[00:19:36] Ok then, that is it for today’s episode on FIFA, by some people’s standards the most corrupt name in sport.
[00:19:44] For the football fans, I’m sure you knew quite a lot of this already, and if you’re not a football fan, well, I hope it was an interesting exploration into this organisation that governs the world’s most popular sport.
[00:19:58] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:20:01] Do you think FIFA is as bad as people claim it is?
[00:20:05] Do you think that the changes to the voting system will fix this corruption, or simply open it up further?
[00:20:12] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:15] You can head right into our community forum and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:21] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:26] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are talking about the governing body of the world’s most popular sport, an organisation with more member states than the United Nations, making it by some standards the world’s biggest non-governmental organisation.
[00:00:36] We are talking, of course, about FIFA.
[00:00:39] But despite its position atop the world’s most popular sport, FIFA is also widely regarded as corrupt, described by some as being run like a ‘mafia family’.
[00:00:52] So, in this episode we will ask ourselves, how could that be?
[00:00:57] How could it be that the beautiful game, as football is known by billions of fans around the world, is run by such a dirty organisation?
[00:01:06] OK then, let’s get into it and talk about FIFA: the most corrupt name in sport.
[00:01:17] In July of 2015, a man named Sepp Blatter sat at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, in Switzerland.
[00:01:27] At the time, Blatter was the most senior man in world football, and he was preparing to give a press conference.
[00:01:36] In his hands were some papers, and to his left another official.
[00:01:42] Behind him was the FIFA symbol in white against a blue backdrop.
[00:01:48] As they prepared for the press conference, Blatter looked down and read through his notes.
[00:01:55] But then, out of nowhere, a man appeared and walked onto the stage.
[00:02:01] As he got closer to Blatter, it became clear that his hands were stuffed full of dollar bills.
[00:02:08] “North Korea 2026,” the man shouted, putting a wedge of money on the desk.
[00:02:15] Blatter and his colleague looked up, and then nervously to their left, off the stage.
[00:02:21] “Security!” Blatter said. “Security, come on! Where is my security?”
[00:02:27] The intruder turned to the crowd and faced the world’s media.
[00:02:32] “As North Korean football ambassador,” he said, “I’m delighted… I think this seals the deal with FIFA and North Korea for the 2026 World Cup.”
[00:02:42] As two security guards quickly made their way onto the stage, the man turned to Blatter and threw another handful of cash high into the air.
[00:02:53] As dollar bills rained down, spiralling through the air and all over the floor and the desk, the man added, “Cheers, Sepp. It’s all there as discussed.”
[00:03:04] The man was escorted, removed from the stage, and Blatter stood up, unsure what to do next.
[00:03:12] After regaining his composure, he walked off the stage briefly and then reappeared at another podium.
[00:03:20] Leaning into a microphone, he explained that before the press conference could begin, they would need to clean up.
[00:03:27] “This,” Blatter said, “has nothing to do with football.”
[00:03:33] So, if that truly had nothing to do with football, what statement was the man trying to make?
[00:03:40] What was that all about?
[00:03:42] Well, before we get into the modern accusations of corruption, we should first consider a bit of history and context so we can understand what exactly FIFA is and what it’s supposed to do.
[00:03:56] As you will probably know, many countries and cultures claim to have “invented” football, playing some sort of game where a ball-like object needs to be kicked towards a target.
[00:04:09] But what we understand to be football today, with teams and rules and something resembling the modern game, was created in England in the 1860s.
[00:04:21] By the 20th century, it had become popular not just as a club sport, that is, played between teams in the same country, but as an international spectacle.
[00:04:33] With a growing fanbase demanding more international fixtures, in May of 1904, the Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, was founded in Paris.
[00:04:46] Its purpose was to regulate national football associations, organise international football matches between countries, standardise the rules, and promote the sport across the world. The football police, if you will.
[00:05:02] The founding members were France, of course, along with Spain, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.
[00:05:10] The Germans joined soon after, the English a year later in 1906, and over the next few years FIFA membership grew.
[00:05:20] The first World Cup was to be held in Uruguay in 1930, but even back then FIFA’s decisions about which country should host the tournament were controversial.
[00:05:33] Uruguay, a tiny South American nation, was given the tournament because it had won the last two football gold medals at the Olympics, and because 1930 was the 100 year anniversary of its first constitution.
[00:05:48] Fair enough, you might say, but not everyone was happy.
[00:05:53] Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, and Hungary refused to participate in the tournament, claiming the journey was too long and expensive, and the final between Argentina and Uruguay was marred by death threats against players.
[00:06:08] Not the best start, you might say.
[00:06:11] But despite all that, football, as you will know, continued to grow throughout the rest of the 20th century, and it’s now the most popular sport in the world by practically every metric.
[00:06:24] According to FIFA’s own figures, football is now played by over 150 million registered players, and the number who play and watch casually runs into the billions.
[00:06:37] And by 2022, FIFA had grown to a whopping 211 member states, more than the United Nations, which only has 193.
[00:06:48] So, FIFA literally has a monopoly on the world’s most popular sport, and is responsible for regulating an industry worth billions of dollars.
[00:06:58] And, as you will know, it has something of a reputation for playing dirty, for corruption.
[00:07:06] To quote the former chairman of the English Football Association, Lord Triesman, the organisation operates like a "mafia family”, and has a - I'm quoting directly - "decades-long tradition of bribes, bungs and corruption".
[00:07:23] A ‘bung’, by the way, is a synonym for a bribe, or a payment made to convince someone to do something, often illegal or unethical.
[00:07:32] So, was this just the musings of a disgruntled Englishman, or is there any evidence that FIFA is as corrupt as he claimed?
[00:07:42] Well, as the expression goes, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”, meaning that accusations are rarely made without some truth behind them.
[00:07:53] And as it turns out, there are plenty of scandals and accusations that have been made against football’s most powerful organisation.
[00:08:03] And when it comes to these scandals, these allegations of bribery and corruption, they almost always come down to FIFA’s main responsibility: the choice of which country gets to host the FIFA World Cup.
[00:08:17] It might have been controversial back in 1930, but now everything has been dialled up a notch, it has become more important due to the enormous sums of money involved.
[00:08:30] Television and sponsorship deals run into the hundreds of millions, and for the countries that actually host the tournaments, the World Cup is a massive boost to its tourism and hospitality sectors.
[00:08:43] With billions watching, it is perhaps the greatest advertising opportunity any country can wish for, right up there if not more important than the Olympics.
[00:08:54] It’s hardly surprising then, that some countries will do just about anything to get a World Cup.
[00:09:02] We’ll look at a few of these scandals in a minute, but first of all, let me just address the question of how FIFA actually chooses what country hosts a World Cup?
[00:09:13] Now it’s a more equal process, with every FIFA member state having one vote, and the voting continues until one bid has a majority of the vote.
[00:09:25] But until recently, the decision was made by a 24-person executive committee, and if there was a tie for first place, the president, which was until recently Sepp Blatter, would have a deciding vote.
[00:09:41] Importantly, the votes were anonymous so it wasn't public which member of the committee voted for which country.
[00:09:50] Taking a sceptic’s view here, this makes it ripe for corruption, as a member of the committee could theoretically accept a bribe and vote for a proposal without it ever being revealed that it was them who voted for that proposal.
[00:10:06] But they would never do that, I hear you say, these are some of the most professional and best-regarded footballing executives in the world!
[00:10:16] Well, I said that the committee was 24 people, but even that had to change after two members of the committee were busted, or caught, trying to sell their votes to journalists working on an undercover story in 2010.
[00:10:32] I should say here, there have been allegations about FIFA committee members taking money for their votes since the 1980s, but there was never really any concrete evidence.
[00:10:45] People suspected that it happened, but could never prove it. After all, the votes were anonymous, it was very hard to prove.
[00:10:53] That was until the summer of 2015, when an American federal investigation shook the football world to its core and charged 14 FIFA officials with money laundering, racketeering, and fraud.
[00:11:11] The defendants, which included high-ranking FIFA officials and even executive committee members, were involved in, and I’m quoting directly, "a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer”.
[00:11:28] And we’re not just talking about a few dollars here.
[00:11:32] According to estimates from the US Justice department, the 14 indicted FIFA members had accepted $150m over two and a half decades.
[00:11:44] The beautiful game, as many had feared, was dirty to its very core.
[00:11:51] So, how did this all come out, how was it revealed?
[00:11:56] It’s all thanks to a man named Chuck Blazer, the former top official in American football, who gave information to the US investigation.
[00:12:06] He claimed that between 2004 and 2011 several top FIFA committee members took bribes in return for choosing South Africa as the host of the 2010 World Cup.
[00:12:19] He even claimed that the former Vice-President of FIFA, Jack Warner, took a $10 million bribe from South African officials for his vote.
[00:12:28] So, if you were wondering how much a vote costs, $10 million is your answer in Jack Warner’s case.
[00:12:37] Blazer also claimed that Warner bribed other FIFA officials to support the South African bid with envelopes of cash containing as much as $40,000.
[00:12:49] Incredibly, when one official rejected Warner’s envelopes, he is reported to have said: "There are some people here who think they are more pious than thou. If you're pious, open a church, friends. Our business is our business.”
[00:13:06] Translating this into plain English, if you’re in FIFA and concerned about corruption, you’d be better off opening a church.
[00:13:15] The South African government, of course, insisted that these were payments to promote Caribbean football, but Warner used the money to rack up credit card debts, give himself personal loans, and withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[00:13:31] And by the way, Chuck Blazer, the whistleblower who revealed all of this information and set the wheels in motion?
[00:13:39] He was no angel.
[00:13:41] He was forced to inform on his former colleagues after he was found to have accepted a million-dollar bribe to vote for South Africa, and he pled guilty to racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering.
[00:13:55] He only cracked and talked to the authorities in order to reduce his own sentence.
[00:14:01] And as more and more evidence was found, it became clear that South Africa was far from the only country to win a World Cup “under the table”, partly or entirely by bribing FIFA committee members.
[00:14:17] Now, you will remember that the last two World Cups were not held in countries traditionally known for their footballing history or culture: Russia and Qatar, and they were both “surprise” winners of the World Cup vote.
[00:14:33] In Russia’s case, it was up against England, and joint bids from Belgium and the Netherlands, and then another joint bid from Portugal and Spain.
[00:14:44] And in Qatar’s case, it was up against Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
[00:14:51] So, how did they get the World Cups?
[00:14:55] If you ask the FIFA committee members who voted for them, they would no doubt tell you that Russia and Qatar presented the best proposals, and an opportunity to promote and develop football in new regions.
[00:15:08] If you ask other people, you might get different answers, and they might suggest that several members of the voting committee took other factors into account.
[00:15:19] Specifically, the main, or perhaps only factor, was how much they would personally be paid for their vote.
[00:15:28] According to a BBC investigation, three senior FIFA officials who voted on the 2018 tournament, which was awarded to Russia, as well as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, had taken bribes back in the 1990s.
[00:15:44] And we aren’t talking about accepting a free holiday or concert tickets.
[00:15:48] We are talking cold, hard cash, bribes that allegedly totalled around $100m.
[00:15:56] So, committee members who had been taking millions in bribes over the years were allowed to stay in their positions and vote on these World Cups.
[00:16:06] And in the 21st century, the stakes were a lot higher, the sums of money involved were a lot greater.
[00:16:13] Do you think these allegedly corrupt officials would change their ways, and their votes would go on merit alone?
[00:16:21] Well, according to U.S. prosecutors, at least five members of FIFA’s top committee accepted bribes ahead of the 2010 vote to choose Russia and Qatar as hosts.
[00:16:34] In the case of Qatar, it is alleged that a former FIFA executive committee member from Qatar, Mohammed bin Hammam, paid millions in bribes to his former colleagues in order to get the tournament for his homeland, a tiny desert nation with no footballing culture or history to speak of.
[00:16:53] These included three South American officials, from Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, who allegedly received large bribes to vote for Qatar.
[00:17:04] And as for the decision to award the World Cup to Russia, prosecutors also believed that Jack Warner [yes, him again], that he was given $5 million to vote for Russia.
[00:17:17] And as for the fifth corrupt official, a Guatemalan committee member who was found guilty of fraud and money laundering in 2016 was also promised $1 million to give his vote to Russia, according to the report.
[00:17:32] And to reiterate, these are five that have been caught, or at least accused.
[00:17:38] Who knows how many other FIFA officials were involved in all of this?
[00:17:44] And to put it another way, since the FIFA executive committee voted in 2010, 16 of the 22 members have been investigated or accused of corruption.
[00:17:56] So if this organisation is indeed run like a “mafia family”, how was this all allowed to go on for so long?
[00:18:05] Well, to answer this question, we need to look at the head of the family, the man we met at the very beginning of this episode.
[00:18:14] Sepp Blatter.
[00:18:16] And Blatter, who spent 17 years as the most senior man in FIFA, has long been accused of corruption.
[00:18:24] In fact, even Blatter’s election as FIFA president all the way back in 1998, as well as his subsequent reelection campaigns, have been linked to corruption and vote rigging.
[00:18:36] The Vice-President of the Confederation of African Football claimed he had been offered $100,000 to vote for Blatter in 1998.
[00:18:45] And when it came to his reelection in 2011, Blatter’s only opponent was Mohamed bin Hammam, the man who allegedly bought Qatar the 2022 World Cup.
[00:18:58] Bin Hammam eventually dropped out of the election and Blatter was elected unopposed, but he only led FIFA for another four years before he was forced to step down when he was put under criminal investigation.
[00:19:12] And throughout all the indictments and investigations, all the controversy over Russia and Qatar, Sepp Blatter has reiterated his famous line, as he did that day on stage in Switzerland, that money has ‘nothing to do with football.’
[00:19:30] All I’ll say is that I’ll leave you to be the judge of that.
[00:19:36] Ok then, that is it for today’s episode on FIFA, by some people’s standards the most corrupt name in sport.
[00:19:44] For the football fans, I’m sure you knew quite a lot of this already, and if you’re not a football fan, well, I hope it was an interesting exploration into this organisation that governs the world’s most popular sport.
[00:19:58] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:20:01] Do you think FIFA is as bad as people claim it is?
[00:20:05] Do you think that the changes to the voting system will fix this corruption, or simply open it up further?
[00:20:12] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:15] You can head right into our community forum and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:21] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:26] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
