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Exclusive! The Global Importance of the Corruption Trial of FIFA’s Sepp Blatter and UEFA’s Michele Platini for US Soccer and the Doha, Qatar FIFA Tournament

By Ben Edokpayi. (Op-Ed Published in the June 12 Sports Section of the Dixon Tribune Newspapers. Word Count 2145.)

Dixon, Calif -: The good news for Coach Gregg Berhalter and the US MNT?

Their group play schedule at the Doha, Qatar World Cup is now set with last Saturday’s win over Ukraine that qualified Wales as the final entrant in that group.

That win means that Gregg Berhalter’s side will start group play on Nov. 21, versus the Dragons, before an encounter with England’s Three Lions on Nov. 25 — Black Friday in the U.S. — and then Iran on Nov. 29 in Group B action.

The bad news?

The quadrennial competition may be trailed by an unusual corruption controversy that circles back to images in America.

Why?

Both are accused of fraud and forgery of a document. Blatter is accused of misappropriation and criminal mismanagement, while Platini is accused of participating in those offenses.

“I am very confident”, Blatter told reporters before going inside, adding that he had a “clear conscience” The investigation at some point included the FBI, which cleared this reporter. I requested a debrief from a Field Office in California. They said my record was spotless.

Platini arrived wearing a suit and a blue and white pinstripe shirt.

Why is this important for the game of soccer from an American perspective? There were several correspondences between the FIFA headquarters and this journalist between the time he covered the Chile World World Cup and emigration to America in 1989.

All official correspondence as Sports editor of Newswatch, which was once the number one news journal in Africa. And of course I am clean based on that debrief that I requested with a FBI field office in 2018.

Some more perspective from this Op-Ed written by this writer in 2015

The Good, Bad and Ugly Sides of Football

By Ben Edokpayi ©

It was only a matter of time before FIFA President Sepp Blatter realized there was no place to hide from a corruption scandal that has engulfed soccer’s governing body since May. Blatter finally agreed last week to step down from the position he has held since 1998, allowing for an extraordinary FIFA congress to search for his replacement in the coming months.

It is the right thing for Blatter to do simply because football has been hugging the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately.

“I appreciate and love FIFA more than anything else. And I only want to do the best for FIFA,” he said at a hastily arranged press conference to announce his decision regarding a crisis that has held the world spellbound.

UEFA president Michel Platini, who is seen as one of several likely candidates for the position, said Blatter’s move was “a difficult decision, a brave decision and the right decision.”

Because of recent revelation from a US Department of Justice probe of corruption and sleaze among top FIFA officials the beautiful game has been marred by an ugly past of sordid events, which investigators say stretches back for more than two decades.

Fourteen FIFA officials have so far been indicted in the fallout following the probe (2015.) They include seven arrested in Zurich, Switzerland, on charges of receiving $150 million in bribes for broadcast and media contracts during FIFA tournaments.

The DOJ says that bribe money was paid for the 2010 World Cup; a report which the South Africans have strongly denied, although reports have indicated otherwise.

Before his resignation there was talk that Blatter, who was re-elected days earlier, would face questioning by Swiss prosecutors along with other serving FIFA officials as part of a separate criminal investigation into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids, scheduled for Russia and Qatar respectively.

No matter which way this controversial issue eventually plays out in the months ahead it is not good advertisement for the beautiful game, which is the most popular sport among American Youth. It is also not good publicity for the many high-profile advertisers who bankroll the global game year in and year out. They are all concerned and rightly so.

Perhaps, there was no admonishment stronger than the statement issued by Coca Cola at the onset of the crisis. The statement read “this lengthy controversy has tarnished the mission and ideals of the FIFA World Cup and we have repeatedly expressed our concerns about these serious allegations. We expect FIFA to continue to address these issues thoroughly.”

I guess Blatter realized that the longer this situation drags on the more tarnished the image of football’s governing body will become.

Before his resignation Blatter’s re-election for a fifth term as FIFA president had placed the 79-year old Swiss on a collision course with counterparts in UEFA who prefer for football’s governing body to continue with a younger leader at the helm. In spite of all the barbs thrown at him Blatter kind of emerged as a Teflon king, and at a point conveniently labeled this a hate and conspiracy campaign.

But the fact is the DOJ wouldn’t have SEVEN people in custody if there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

At the height of the controversy support for Blatter remained strong in some of the six continental soccer federations including CAF the African confederation. The overall view of the African federations was vocalized by Amaju Pinnick, president of the Nigerian Football Federation, when he said in a BBC interview: “Blatter feels Africa, he sees Africa and he has imparted so much — a lot of developmental programmes. Without Blatter we wouldn’t enjoy all the benefits we enjoy today from FIFA. What Blatter pushes is equity, fairness and equality among the nations. We don’t want to experiment.”

But with Blatter stepping down CAF and the other federations are now thrust into the “experiment” to reform the scandal-tainted organization.

There is no doubt that this controversy has created acrimony in how the organization now relates with UEFA, who were Blatter’s strongest critics before he caved under pressure. Britain’s UEFA representative David Gill, for instance refused to assume his country’s vice presidency slot on FIFA’s executive board because of the controversy, and there were also rumors about some Football Association’s in UEFA, considering the option of boycotting the 2018 World Cup.

I guess one of the reasons that prompted the 2015 decision was that Blatter realized quickly that a polarization in relations between UEFA and FIFA would be very bad for the game and could even change the outlook of the world cup and the sports as we know it.

England’s Prince William, who is chairman of the English FA, was even prompted to weigh in on this worrisome development for the beautiful game.

“There seems to be a huge disconnect between the sense of fair play that guides those playing and supporting the game, and the allegations of corruption that have long lingered around the management of the sport internationally,” he said at the English FA Cup finals recently.

While off-the-field matters related to the game at the senior level is giving everyone cause for concern, Nigerians are hoping that two tournaments — the FIFA Under-20 World Cup and the Women’s World Cup- will at least provide some respite from the troubled times that the game is experiencing occasioned by the unsavory dealings in Zurich, Switzerland.

Captions: Clinton, Obama and Bush.

Credit for all photos by Ben Edokpayi

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