The humbling of FIFA – how the U.S. will now decide where the World Cup is played.

I believed it myself for a few hours – after decades of  media rumblings about corruption at FIFA, the FBI finally acted to ‘clean up’ the world’s least liked NGO.

‘Good and about time!’ I thought and felt grateful to the American authorities.

But then all the hysterically ‘on message’ media coverage started to ring alarm bells – I had the distinct feeling I was being fed a narrative and once I stopped to think, it became obvious that a game of distraction was afoot.

Why is the FBI suddenly interested in FIFA? The corruption within the governing body of world football has been an open secret for forty years.  João Havelange schooled Sepp Blatter in the dark arts of FIFA’s gravy train and boy did he train him well. Its hard to think of a more nakedly amoral, corrupt and greedy group than FIFA under Sepp Blatter, but oddly the U.S. has appeared unconcerned until now.

That’s not really surprising, the FIFA model of political coercion may not have been intentionally modelled on the U.S system of corrupt corporate patronage but it might just as well have been – they are in truth, birds of a feather – wealthy neoliberal comrades in arms.

Its not like the U.S. is really bothered about corruption – in fact its focus on corruption is so extraordinarily selective as to beggar belief.

Why were the money laundering executives of the HSBC bank (caught red handed by the U.S. itself) allowed to walk away scot free after being found guilty of aiding Mexican drug cartels, tax dodgers, Al Queda, North Korea, the mafia and just about anyone who needed a safe haven for money from criminal activities? Are we seriously expected to believe that a few rigged votes and back handers at FIFA is more important than the integrity of the global financial system and laundering hundreds of millions  of dollars for terrorists, murderers and rogue states?

If the U.S cared about corruption, its jails would be full of bankers, financial executives, lobbyists, politicians, CEOs and oligarchs. So its hard to imagine this sudden impulse to go after FIFA is really about corruption – and since the obedient corporate media is falling over itself to talk of nothing else… its easy to spot a shell game at work.

Some say the U.S. needed to gather enough proof before acting on FIFA, but is this really plausible? This a nation that can bug the telephones of the German chancellor with impunity and with a global spying network that even Edward Snowden has only partially uncovered? When the NSA can intercept and analyse the personal emails / phone traffic of millions of its own (innocent) citizens, do we really think it would take the FBI over forty years to build a case against the brash swagger and obvious corruption of a few FIFA officials? Really?

So what could the real reasons be? We can only speculate , but a few things are hidden in plain sight.

The U.S. was at pains to say that their investigation was not about Russia – who host their first World Cup in 2018. But what’s this…?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/07/russia-qatar-lose-world-cups-if-bribery-found-fifa

The man responsible for overseeing Fifa’s reform process in the current crisis has confirmed that Russia and Qatar may be stripped of their World Cup hosting rights if conclusive new proof of corruption emerges.

The Haze has a hunch such proof will emerge courtesy of the FBI et al. The snubbed English have eagerly stepped forward as replacement hosts already.

Not since the 1978 world cup went to Argentina has its hosting been so politically vexatious for the U.S.

The winning Qatari bid beat the U.S. bid of course. Perhaps the U.S. wants that decision overturned but needs a pretext for doing so that doesn’t upset a nation that hosts two important U.S. military bases?

 If the World Cup was now scheduled to be in American cities in 2022, do we seriously imagine that the FBI would be investigating the bidding process?

Are we so doped up by the media as to not notice how the the Israel / Palestinian conflict is being played out within FIFA? Israel is the key strategic partner for the U.S  in the middle east and a global campaign to isolate them economically and socially is gaining ground. The U.S. needed to get a grip on the geopolitical football games at FIFA and they have – to devastating effect.

This flexing of ‘soft power’ by the U.S. sends a clear message to FIFA – you have strayed beyond the political bounds we deem acceptable so you have become fair game.

A few FIFA executives will be prosecuted to complete the pretence that this power play is all about corruption and then FIFA’s gravy train will chug on much as before, except that it will be forever fixed in the minds of everyone at FIFA what happens if you upset the United States of America.

Anticipatory compliance with U.S. sensibilities will be guaranteed, don’t expect the World Cup to be held anywhere controversial anytime soon!

Its not like we are expecting FIFA to tale a moral stand against U.S. coercion are we? FIFA is corrupt and amoral after all – and far from ridding FIFA of that corruption and moral vacuity, the U.S. is counting on it.