By Mark Baber
June 9 – In a commentary, Xinhua, the official press agency of China, has claimed the indictment of FIFA officials exposes Washington’s arrogance as “world police” and also “set a bad precedent for international relations.”
Xinhua, which is a ministry-level department subordinate to the Chinese central government with its president a member of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of China, said: “Although the anti-corruption storm may help the world football governing body accelerate reforms in some way, it is more like a well-designed plan to achieve some geopolitical objectives.”
Echoing similar concerns in Russian and South American media, Xinhua questions the timing of the US-led campaign “launched at a time when Sepp Blatter, who blasted the tactics used by US anti-corruption investigators, secured a fifth term as FIFA president and Russia is gearing up for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.”
Xinhua points to an article in the Financial Times which said the United States will be the biggest beneficiary in the campaign and quotes an official of the Brazilian Football Association (CBF) who “said Washington’s meddling in FIFA’s internal affairs has turned the world football governing body into an arena for world powers’ political fights, where a new Cold War will be staged.”
Xinhua also quotes Igor Trunov, vice president of the Federal Lawyer Union in Russia, who “said the United States placed its national legal system on top of the international one in trying to seize the officials from international organizations.”
The Chinese agency also quotes Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying the move was a manifestation of U. attempts to extend its jurisdiction to foreign countries.
According to Xinhua: “The United States has always been good at meddling in internal affairs of international organisations and other countries, so as to force them to act on its will in the service of its political objectives.”
However, despite the anti-US line, Xinhua does recognise that: “With the lack of financial transparency, balancing of power, and supervision in FIFA, it is no wonder that some kinds of corruption exist within the organisation, professional leagues, and international events.”
According to Xinhua, effective methods must be adopted to prevent corruption in football, but “Sportsmanship should not be tarnished. And sport should not become a tool for political games.”
The US Justice Department have claimed their investigation has nothing to do with Russia and involves the investigation of crimes that were perpetrated on US soil or using US facilities such as US banks.
Clearly FIFA have not been able to effectively stamp out corruption themselves and have not been able to impose meaningful sanctions on offenders or deter corrupt behaviour. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising the US have stepped in to fill the void.
However, the lack of criticism of the US measures in the (non-US) Western press is remarkable, particularly when one considers what the reaction would be in the US media if a foreign country indicted and demanded extradition of top officials in one of its major league sports.
The FBI and US courts are in fact a very blunt tool with which to tackle corruption in any international organisation due to a number of features of the US criminal justice system, not least the racist nature of US justice which academic study after study has shown directly targets and punishes those with darker skin much more aggressively that white people.
In addition the nature of American juries which the ‘Xenophobia in American court’ academic study showed led to domestic parties winning 64% of the cases decided by a jury when their (commercial) adversary was foreign, while foreign parties prevailed in just 36% of such cases.
Then there is the fact that the US rate of incarceration is five to eight times higher than other highly developed countries with only a small percentage of cases actually going to trial. Most defendants, even those who are innocent, are persuaded to plea-bargain in order to receive a much shorter sentence.
The failure of the US investigation to name, let alone charge the well-known US multinational sports firm or any of its employees at the centre of the football corruption scandal (though it is generally accepted it is Nike), is hardly likely to increase foreign confidence in the investigation, and as Blatter asked upon re-election, who seriously thinks we would be where we are today if different hosts had been chosen for 2018 and 2022?
The problem for football generally (and hardly addressed by the Russians or Chinese) is that, unpleasantly blunt as US justice may be, in seriously tackling the most corrupt elements within world football, there has so far been no effective alternative.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1735875009labto1735875009ofdlr1735875009owedi1735875009sni@r1735875009ebab.1735875009kram1735875009