For decades, the sumptuous taste and suspected abuses inside soccer’s governing body, FIFA, have been an exasperating global punch line, a kind of perverse mixture of pampered oligarchy and Bond villainy. Stories of soccer spending gone amok included an FIFA official who, according to a memorable 2014 piece in the New York Daily News, maintained an opulent lifestyle that included a luxury New York City apartment—for his cats.
Gay, Jason. "Soccer's Overdue Day of Reckoning." The Wall Street Journal., May 28, 2015, D6, Accessed on May 28, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/fifas-overdue-day-of-reckoning-1432769840
It had to happen sooner rather than later. For years FIFA, the global governing body of soccer, has been enmeshed in the rank miasma of corruption and bribery. On Wednesday FIFA finally got the prosecution it deserves as the United States Justice Department issued an indictment highlighting the largest corruption scandal in sports history.
More from The Wall Street Journal here, here and here (on the U.S. Justice Department's long arm jurisdiction over the case). The Economist comments here.
Hopefully, this is the start of reform at FIFA. The world's greatest sport deserves better government.
John Oliver on FIFA and the last World Cup
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