Daily Beast - The United States has stepped in to save the rest of the world from its beautiful game.
Soccer has wallowed in accusations of bribery and corruption for decades, culminating in the ludicrous and unexplained decision by the sport’s governing body, FIFA, to award the next two World Cups to Russia and Qatar, two oil-rich nations with poor human rights records and none of the conditions or infrastructure necessary to host the showpiece events.
In dawn raids on a five-star hotel in Switzerland on Wednesday, several of the sport’s most powerful executives, including FIFA's vice president, were placed under arrest. This follows lengthy corruption investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States will ask the Swiss government to extradite the six FIFA executives. Further arrests are expected.
Despite hosting the World Cup in 1994, the U.S. has always been seen as an outsider in a sport that is the undisputed number one crowd pleaser in most other countries. Wednesday’s arrests, however, cast the United States as a central player in a dramatic intervention that has turned the entire soccer world upside down. Billions of dollars in advertising and television rights controlled by FIFA could be at stake, and there is even a chance that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin could face the humiliation of losing the 2018 World Cup. Steamy, tiny, too-rich little Qatar may also be forced to give up its implausible claim on the event in 2022.
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