MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Sepp Blatter will run for a fifth, four-year term as FIFA president.
The 78-year-old Swiss had pledged before his re-election in 2011 that his current term would be his last. But buoyed by a successful World Cup in Brazil and UEFA President Michel Platini opting not to stand in next year's election, Blatter believes he has the backing to win again.
"I will make an official declaration definitely in September now when we have the executive committee," Blatter said in a pre-recorded interview shown Monday at the SoccerEx conference. "I will inform the executive committee. It's a question of respect also to say then to the football family, 'Yes I will be ready. I will be a candidate.'"
Blatter, who was re-elected unopposed in 2011, had previously stopped short of confirming his candidacy for the May election. Despite ongoing corruption scandals engulfing FIFA and opposition within UEFA, Blatter appears to have retained the support of most national federations.
"A mission is never finished — and my mission is not finished," Blatter said. "I got (from) the last congress in Sao Paulo not only the impression but the support of the majority, a huge majority of national associations asking 'Please go on, be our president also in future.'"
FIFA is considering moving the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to the winter, a decision that will have adverse effects on domestic leagues, players, and television partners around the world.
A FIFA task force will consider three windows for the 2022 World Cup: January/February, June/July, and November/December.
In its initial bid proposal, the Qatar World Cup organizing committee promised to hold the tournament in the June/July with the help of futuristic, not-yet-existent cooling technology that would keep stadiums at a comfortable 80 degrees. FIFA's own evaluation of the bid said playing in summer, when temperatures hit 120 degrees, would be a "potential health risk" for players and fans.
Qatar won the bid despite those concerns. Four years later, FIFA is poised to admit that it's impossible to hold a World Cup in the summer heat of Qatar — something that would have been a backbreaker for the nation's bid in 2010.
Moving the tournament to winter is going to be an ugly, complicated process. But with FIFA president Sepp Blatter backing the move, it looks like it's going to happen.
Here's why it'd be such a mess.
1. Domestic leagues will have to take crippling mid-season breaks.
There's a reason the biggest international soccer tournaments are played in summer. European leagues start in August and conclude in May. That allows international teams and players about five weeks of preparation before the World Cup, and five weeks of recovery for the next professional season.
This isn't an accident. These guys are professional players first and international players second. The World Cup has to fit into the Premier League/Bundesliga/La Liga/Serie A calendar, not the other way around.
Moving the tournament to winter would disrupt these leagues. The Premier League wouldn't just have to halt during World Cup, it would have to halt weeks before it began and weeks after it ended to give players adequate preparation and recovery time.
The leagues would either have to cram more games into fewer weeks (a potential health risk for players), shorten the length of the season (resulting in decreased television and ticket revenue for teams), or alter the calendar to stretch the season into the summer (which would have the domino effect of disrupting the next domestic season).
Would the Premier League play from August to September, take a three-month break, and then play from February until August? Would Real Madrid — the most valuable sports team in the world — be okay with tweaking the formula that has made the club so rich?
A group of European league executives met in May and released a statement saying, "all scenarios on the rescheduling of the World Cup in Qatar are damaging the domestic competitions and leagues' business interests."
2. A January/February World Cup would conflict with the Winter Olympics.
The IOC says this won't happen, but since FIFA has a January/February 2022 World Cup on the table, it's a possibility.
The Olympics and the World Cup are two of the biggest one-off sporting events in the world. That's why NBC spent $7.75 billion to broadcast the Olympics between 2022 and 2032 and Fox spent $425 million on the World Cup. If they were staged at the same time though, they'd be competing for viewers and ratings for both events would take a hit.
3. It would screw over its American TV partners.
Fox paid $425 million to broadcast the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. That's double what ESPN paid for the 2010 and 2014 tournaments.
ESPN drew record ratings for this summer's tournament. But it came in the dead zone of the American sports calendar. With no NFL, no NBA, and no particularly meaningful other sporting events to speak of, the World Cup was the only show in town.
That will not be the case if the 2022 tournament is moved to winter. Fox will have to compete with the NFL for interest and viewers. And to make things even more complicated, it will have to compete with itself for interest and airtime since it also owns NFL broadcasting rights.
A November/December World Cup would conflict with the NFL regular season. A January/February World Cup would conflict with the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl.
Fox told Bloomberg in a statement when the possibility of a winter World Cup was first raised, "Fox Sports bought the World Cup rights with the understanding they would be in the summer as they have been since the 1930s."
FIFA knew from the beginning that a summer World Cup in Qatar was unrealistic and dangerous. Because it ignored those concerns back in 2010, it has an even bigger mess on its hands.
A 350-page report on the investigation into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will not be made public, FIFA president Sepp Blatter vowed on Friday.
Instead, only the adjudicatory committee's "position with regard to the general report" will be made public after the report is presented to FIFA's independent ethics committee, Blatter says. The public will get an interpretation of the report's findings, in other words, but not the actual report itself.
FIFA executive committee member Theo Zwanzinger shocked the soccer world earlier in September when he said he thought the World Cup wouldn't take place in Qatar. While momentum seems to be building, it'll take a smoking gun for FIFA to act.
The Garcia report will go a long way toward deciding the tournament's fate, and only a handful of people will actually get to read it.
There is perhaps no job with a greater disparity in how men and women are compensated than that of a professional athlete.
For instance, the highest-paid female soccer player, the Brazilian Marta Vieira da Silva, is reported to make about $400,000 a year from the Swedish team that employs her — very good money, for sure, but not a mind-blowing number.
By contrast, Real Madrid pays Cristiano Ronaldo a staggering $49 million a year, due to the overwhelming worldwide popularity of men's soccer.
Though it's unlikely female athletes will be paid the same as men in the near future, the world's top women soccer players are seeking an equal playing field in the literal sense.
Players who are competing in the 2015 Women's World Cup, to be held in Canada, filed a lawsuit against the Canadian Soccer Association and FIFA, soccer's international governing body, alleging that they are being discriminated against by being asked to play their tournament on artificial turf when the men get to play theirs on natural grass.
The suit, filed before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, claims that artificial turf is a substandard playing surface that changes the way the ball bounces and puts players at a greater risk of injury.
The women also note that FIFA's own magazine has said that artificial turf fields are "deeply problematic" and that the game's elite male players refuse to play on them.
Anecdotally, two of the best players for Major League Soccer's New York Red Bulls, defender Jamison Olave and legendary forward Thierry Henry, simply do not play when the Red Bulls are on the road against a team that has an artificial playing field.
The women are requesting that FIFA either install natural grass playing surfaces at the stadiums presently scheduled to host the games or move the tournament to stadiums that already have them.
Jeffrey Webb, president of North America's soccer governing body, CONCACAF, on Wednesday told attendees of a conference in London that the decision to play the tournament on artificial turf was "not a gender situation."
"It's more from when you look at various places in the Caribbean, and Canada, and the weather … I believe a good artificial pitch is better than a poor natural one," he said, according to Sports Illustrated. "I feel that artificial pitches are seen to be part of the future, and have been well-regarded."
The U.S. men's national team is ranked 23rd in the October FIFA Rankings, its lowest position since June of 2013.
It's a six-spot drop from September.
It's not a huge deal. FIFA's rankings are horribly flawed and don't take into account meaningful metrics like margin of victory.
In addition, the U.S. has spent its post-World Cup friendlies trying to incorporate new players into the team. Since losing to Belgium in Brazil the U.S. has played three friendlies, beating the Czech Republic 1-0 and drawing both Ecuador and Honduras 1-1.
During that same period, a bunch of European teams were able to amass FIFA ranking points while playing Euro 2016 qualifiers (which are worth more 2.5-times more points than friendlies).
So yeah, don't freak out too much. Soccer fans would love to ignore these rankings entirely, but FIFA uses them to determine World Cup groups, so they aren't entirely irrelevant.
The U.S. plays Colombia and Ireland in its next round of friendlies in November. Its next meaningful competition is the 2015 Gold Cup next summer.
Geneva (AFP) - FIFA has apologised for an embarrassing diplomatic faux-pas when its video launching the 2018 World Cup logo portrayed the Crimean peninsula as part of Russia.
The disputed clip was beamed on to the facade of Russia's historic Bolshoi Theatre at the official unveiling of the 2018 logo in the Russian capital on Tuesday.
The strategic peninsula of Crimea, long home to Russian military bases, was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in March, sparking the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
World football's governing body issued a statement blaming the blunder on a local video production agency.
"Unfortunately the map of Russia selected and used during the projection by the local service provider escaped our attention and the short sequence in question has been removed," a FIFA spokesman said.
The slip-up came at a sensitive time with FIFA trying to find a solution to the Crimea club crisis.
Russia has incorporated teams based in Crimea in its third division, a move hotly disputed by the Ukrainian football federation.
Emirates Airlines has withdrawn its sponsorship of FIFA, immediately ending any involvement it might have had with the 2018 and 2022 World Cup.
Here’s their statement:
“This decision was made following an evaluation of FIFA’s contract proposal which did not meet Emirates’ expectations.”
Most are taking that to read Emirates is uneasy about corruption claims surrounding the bid process for the World Cup, particularly the 2022 tournament which will be held in Qatar. Emirates is based in Dubai, UAE, a short distance just across the Gulf from Qatar, and the two countries have something of a fractious relationship when it comes to wooing business and major events.
On the construction side, Qatar is struggling to get its affairs in order and just this morning, news broke that it will not be able to keep its promise to hold the 2022 World Cup in summer. It looks like FIFA will now have to either negotiate with the big European leagues to disrupt their football season, or with the IOC over a schedule clash with the Winter Olympics.
Its original $200bn proposal has already seen 12 stadiums cut to eight, and it’s continually fending off accusations of poor workers’ conditions and a mounting death toll which at last report sat around 900.
Dubai, perhaps sensing an opportunity, isn’t helping. It’s gunning for the 2019 Asian Cup football tournament and the T20 World Cup cricket tournament in 2018, which will stretch construction resources already under huge pressure in the area.
And in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, a recently approved plan to build 11 45,000 seat stadiums across the kingdom in the next two years will most likely (some say not entirely accidentally) take those resources to breaking limit.
Now, with Emirates all but saying Qatar’s World Cup is too dirty for them to be associated with, things might get serious at FIFA’s end of operations. The airline was one of FIFA’s six major sponsors. Another, Sony, has hinted but not confirmed it will soon follow suit.
Of course, the sheer exposure of being associated with the biggest sporting event on the globe is always going to be FIFA’s biggest trump card. Waiting in the wings to fill both slots is Emirates’ rival Qatar Airways and Samsung would most likely step in for Sony.
But there are signs FIFA is slowly but surely realising that it can’t keep operating in secrecy forever and the money will simply flow unhindered. It’s already caved in to demands it release a version, albeit limited, of former New York City district attorney Michael Garcia’s findings on the 2022 bidding process. Its first option was to keep the entire report under wraps.
So far, Qatar has kept the increasing criticism of its bid at bay.
But if a decision is to be made about its ability to make the 2022 World Cup a winner, it will have to come sooner rather than later, and Emirates’ decision to walk away from FIFA due to Qatar’s involvement couldn’t have dropped at a more critical time.
FIFA will announce the finding of its much-anticipated ethics investigation into the bidding process for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on Thursday at 4 p.m. eastern time.
If FIFA is going to take the extraordinary step of stripping Qatar of the World Cup, as some have speculated, a bombshell revelation from this report is the most plausible catalyst.
The investigation was conducted by Michael Garcia, a former U.S. attorney. Since 2012 he has been investigating bribery allegations related to the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, which were awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively at a meeting in Zurich in 2010. He interviewed 75 people and compiled 200,000 pages worth of documents.
The findings of the investigation will be announced in a statement by ethics committee judge Hans-Joachim Eckert. Controversially, the entire 350-page report will not be released. Garcia, as well as many other influential figures, have called for the entire report to be published. Instead, we're going to get Eckert's interpretation of it.
In October, Eckert said his statement will contain "an overview of the investigation report, a summary of the main findings, conclusions and recommendations of the report."
All three of these figures are no longer a part of the executive committee. Bin Hammam was not a part of the Qatari bid committee in 2010, which has vehemently denied any wrongdoing in the bidding for the World Cup.
Current executive committee member Jim Boyce said over the summer that there should be a re-vote if the Garcia report finds that Qatar bribed its way to the World Cup:
"If Garcia’s report comes up and his recommendations are that wrongdoing happened for that vote for the 2022 World Cup, I certainly as a member of the executive [committee] would have absolutely no problem whatsoever if the recommendation was for a re-vote.
“If Garcia comes up with concrete evidence and concrete evidence is given to the executive committee and to FIFA then it has to be looked at very seriously at that time, there’s no doubt about that."
Qatar won the vote over the United States.
On Thursday, we'll find out if there's any evidence to justify moving the World Cup.
Hours after FIFA released a summary of its years-long investigation into the bidding process for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, lead investigator and former US Attorney Michael Garcia said the organization whitewashed his findings.
FIFA ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert released a 42-page summary of the report in which he cleared Qatar of any major corruption violations during the World Cup bidding process in 2010.
Garcia, whose full report was controversially kept secret by FIFA, immediately issued a statement saying Eckert's summary misrepresented the conclusions in his report.
"Today's decision by the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed in the Investigatory Chamber's report," he said.
Garcia plans to appeal.
The bidding process for the 2022 World Cup has been surrounded by allegations of bribery. But according to Eckert's summary of the investigation — which, again, has been disowned by Garcia — Qatar did not commit any major violations.
The investigation found that six-figure payments made to soccer officials by ex-FIFA vice president Mohamed Bin Hammam were bribes for his FIFA presidential run in 2011, not Qatar's World Cup bid. While Bin Hammam is from Qatar, Eckert described his relationship with the Qatar bid committee as "somewhat distant." Bin Hammam has since been banned for life twice.
The report also found that Qatar paid for a congress of African football officials at which it campaigned for its bid. But this wasn't a violation of FIFA's rules, Eckert says.
The big question now is what is the material difference is between Eckert's summary and Garcia's report. In addition to Qatar's bid, Garcia investigated ethics violations surrounding the entire 2018 and 2022 bidding processes — including bids from England, Russia, Australia, and the US. Russia, the 2018 World Cup selection, was cleared of all ethics allegations as well.
According to SI's Grant Wahl, the full report contains specific criticisms of FIFA president Sepp Blatter and other FIFA current executive committee members that don't appear in Eckert's summary.
In a statement, FIFA said: "FIFA welcomes the fact that a degree of closure has been reached with the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber stating today that 'the evaluation of the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cups' bidding process is closed for the FIFA Ethics Committee."
With the guy who ran the investigation saying his findings were whitewashed, it's fair to say we're still a good distance away from "closure."
Coca-Cola has become the first tier-one sponsor of the World Cup to publicly criticize FIFA for its handling of the investigation into corruption over the bidding process for the 2018 tournament in Russia and 2022 competition in Qatar, according to a report in The Sunday Times.
FIFA's latest crisis came earlier this month when it published a summary of the report (it says legal restrictions prevent it from releasing the full report), clearing the winning Qatar and Russia bids of any corruption. Shortly after its publication, the summary was disowned by FIFA's own ethics chief Michael Garcia, who said the report had been "misrepresented" by football's governing body, as reported in The Daily Telegraph.
Coke has said the handling of the botched investigation has been "disappointing." It is extremely unusual for sponsors to publicly come out against the media they sponsor (they'd much rather just pick up the phone and thrash out issues in private.) But in recent months, sponsors including Adidas, Hyundai, Visa, Sony and Budweiser have all released statements effectively denouncing the negative tenor surrounding FIFA's decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. It shows just how tense the situation is at FIFA right now and how poisonous association with the football body is becoming.
FIFA announced last week it was lodging a criminal complaint with the Swiss attorney general regarding "possible misconduct of individual persons in connection with the awarding of the hosting rights of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups."The Mail on Sunday reports that five officials with connections to FIFA are at the center of the investigation. But FIFA's ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert said there was not enough evidence to question the entire bidding process.
Awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar has been particularly controversial. Qatar said earlier this month it will not be able to keep its promise to hold the 2022 World Cup in the summer — completely disrupting European football seasons and potentially clashing with the Winter Olympics — its original $200 billion construction proposal has already seen 12 stadiums cut to eight, and the country's football body is continually fending off accusations of poor workers' conditions and a mounting death toll, which at the last report stood at around 900.
A Coca-Cola spokesman told The Sunday Times: “Anything that detracts from the mission and ideals of the FIFA World Cup is a concern to us.
“The current conflicting perspectives regarding the investigation are disappointing. Our expectation is that this will be resolved quickly in a transparent and efficient manner.”
Coke has sponsored the tournament since 1974. Its current contract with FIFA lasts until 2022 and is estimated, by sponsorship experts BrandRapport, to be worth £75 million ($117 million) over a four year period (the World Cup takes place every four years.)
Some 40% of FIFA's commercial revenue comes from sponsorship, advertising and ticket sales, while the rest comes from TV broadcasting. FIFA reported revenue of $4 billion (£2.4 billion) in the 2011-14 period. The figures highlight just how important the continued financial support of sponsors is to the organization.
Adidas, another top tier sponsor of the tournament, which is signed up with FIFA until 2030 with a contract estimated to be worth £95 million ($149 million) over a four year period, has been less damning in its response to the corruption investigation. The sportswear manufacturer told The Sunday Times it was planning to discuss the report with FIFA directly.
McDonald's, a tier two sponsor, has said it is "monitoring the situation."
Meanwhile, earlier this month Emirates announced it was ending its sponsorship of the World Cup, after an eight year partnership with FIFA. The Dubai airline's contract was due to come to an end in 2014 anyway, but put out a statement saying the decision not to renew was made "following an evaluation of FIFA's contract proposal which did not meet Emirates' expectations."
Most people took that to read that Emirates was uneasy about the corruption claims surrounding the bid process for the World Cup, particularly the 2022 tournament held in Dubai. However, the decision may also have been made because the brand is in a far more prominent place than it was back in 2006, and the brand awareness opportunity a World Cup can offer is no longer necessary.
Sony's contract also comes to an end this year and the company is also rumored to be the next to opt not to renew.
Outside of brand partners, the English, German, Dutch, Belgian, Swedish and Danish football federations have also all criticized FIFA for not publishing the full 350-page corruption report.
But despite the very public outcry over FIFA's handling of the World Cup bidding process, most sponsorship experts Business Insider has spoken to don't think a widespread boycott is likely — despite the potential damage to sponsors' brands by being associated with football's governing body if it is found guilty of any wrongdoing, or if anything goes wrong at one of the tournaments.
Nigel Currie, director at sports marketing and sponsorship agency BrandRapport told Business Insider: "Unless they all get together to put pressure on FIFA...there's a question of whether sponsors have influence. I think it's unlikely they will all come together. The World Cup is such a valuable property to these brands that they need to be part of it — and if they pull out, their main competitors will be all to glad to step in.
"All major sponsorship contracts will have embarrassment or insurance clauses if something significant happens [like the unlikely event that the World Cup was held in a war zone] or if they can prove it has fundamentally negatively impacted on their business."
It appears Coke's attack on FIFA may well be a none-too-subtle reminder that these clauses are firmly in place.
Visa has become the latest World Cup sponsor to publicly criticize football's governing body FIFA for its handling of the investigation into alleged corruption over the bidding process that will see Russia holding the 2018 tournament and the 2022 competition being held in Qatar.
Marketing Week reports that Visa — which has a contract with FIFA to sponsor the World Cup until 2022, at an estimated value of £120 million over a four-year tournament-long period, according to sponsorship agency BrandRapport — is calling for more "forthright communications" from FIFA.
"We are troubled by the recent events surrounding FIFA. In our discussions we have clearly stated that greater transparency and more open, forthright communications is not only paramount, but the only way in which public trust in FIFA, and all that it represents, will be restored. It is our expectation that FIFA will act accordingly and take swift action to resolve these issues in a manner that is meaningful and visible to all."
FIFA has an ever-growing crisis on its hands: it needs to hold on to the support of its sponsors as they account for 40% its commercial revenue, according to its latest financial filings. But that support is waning, at least as far as corporate communications are concerned. Visa's statement comes in the same week Coca-Cola said the handling of FIFA's botched investigation into the bidding process has been "disappointing." It adds to the growing negative tenor between sponsors and FIFA — other sponsors including Adidas, Hyundai, Sony and Budweiser have all previously released statements criticizing FIFA and the media storm it has created surrounding the World Cup bidding process — and brands are looking to distance themselves from the scandals.
A report in the Wall Street Journal this week suggested that Sony is close to terminating its contract with FIFA altogether, partly due to the controversy surrounding FIFA's investigation. The contract is up for renewal this year.
Most people took that to read that Emirates was uneasy about the corruption claims surrounding the bid process for the World Cup, particularly the 2022 tournament held in Qatar. However, the decision may also have been made because the brand is in a far more prominent place than it was back in 2006, and the brand awareness opportunity a World Cup can offer is no longer necessary. Emirates' contract also came to an end in 2014 anyway.
Sponsors have become increasingly perturbed with FIFA after the governing body released a summary of report on its investigation into the World Cup bidding process, cleaning the winning Qatar and Russia bids of any corruption. Shortly after its publication, the summary was disowned by FIFA's own ethics chief Michael Garcia, who said the report had been "misrepresented."
FIFA announced last week it was lodging a criminal complaint with the Swiss attorney general regarding "possible misconduct of individual persons in connection with the awarding of the hosting rights of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups."The Mail on Sunday reports that five officials with connections to FIFA are at the center of the investigation. But FIFA's ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert said there was not enough evidence to question the entire bidding process.
Awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar has been controversial decision. Qatar said earlier this month it will not be able to keep its promise to hold the 2022 World Cup in the summer — completely disrupting European football seasons and potentially clashing with the Winter Olympics — its original $200 billion construction proposal has already seen 12 stadiums cut to eight, and the country's football body is continually fending off accusations of poor workers' conditions and a mounting death toll, which at the last report stood at around 900.
But despite the growing furore FIFA is facing at the moment, most sponsorship experts that Business Insider has spoken to don't think a widespread boycott is likely. The World Cup is an unrivaled marketing opportunity in terms of scale and, if a sponsor were to pull out, one of their rivals would be all-too-glad to step in. Statement's like Visa's appear to be an attempt at brand damage limitation.
Manila (AFP) - FIFA president Sepp Blatter said Qatar was in no danger of being stripped of the 2022 World Cup as new questions arose Sunday over the awarding of hosting rights.
The world football chief reiterated his backing for the tournament after a British newspaper published fresh allegations about the bidding process.
"Ladies and gentlemen, believe me, if we see what has been said, what's told around the world, it's by those who are not involved exactly (in) what happens in football," Blatter told delegates at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) awards in Manila.
"The World Cup 2022 will be played in Qatar," he said to applause and a few whistles of support from the 400 delegates at the gala dinner in the Philippine capital.
Blatter was speaking after the Sunday Times said Britain's bidding team for the 2018 World Cup, awarded to Russia, had a secret database containing fresh allegations about the 2018 and 2022 hosting races.
The database includes unproven claims of vote-buying and trading linked to both Qatar and Russia's successful bids, according to the newspaper.
The report comes after deep controversy over FIFA's in-house probe into the bidding process, when investigator Michael Garcia said the world body had misrepresented his findings.
On Sunday FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke insisted there was "no need" to publish the investigation in full, despite widespread calls to make it public.
"Legally speaking there is no need and no reason to publish," Valcke said in brief comments to AFP at the function in Manila.
Blatter, who is seeking re-election to a fifth term next year, has also faced calls to step down over FIFA's handling of the report on Qatar.
The 78-year-old Swiss enjoys strong support from the AFC, including its leader Shaikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, who is also expected to seal re-election next year.
"He came in with his executive committee to bring Asian football to the right place," Blatter said of Shaikh Salman. "It's (Asia) a great part of football, it's a great part of the world," he added.
Michael Garcia, the FIFA ethics head who led a two-year investigation in the bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, resigned on Tuesday.
The resignation comes after Garcia protested FIFA's handling of the 430-page report that contained the findings and conclusions of his investigation. Instead of making the report public, FIFA decided to release a 42-page summary of the report from ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert.
In that summary, Eckert cleared Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing in the World Cup bidding process. Almost immediately, Garcia released a scathing statement saying Eckert's summary whitewashed his full report.
"Today's decision by the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed in the Investigatory Chamber's report," Garcia said.
Garcia appealed to have his entire report released, but FIFA denied that appeal on Monday.
In a statement to the AP announcing his resignation, Garcia slammed FIFA. He said he had lost confidence in the organization's commitment to ethics enforcement, and cited a "lack of leadership" within FIFA as the reason for his departure.
He said it's not even worth it to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport because there's no changing FIFA's broken culture.
"While the Appeal Committee's decision notes that further appeal may be taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, I have concluded that such a course of action would not be practicable in this case," Garcia said. "No independent governance committee, investigator, or arbitration panel can change the culture of an organization. And while the November 13, 2014, Eckert Decision made me lose confidence in the independence of the Adjudicatory Chamber, it is the lack of leadership on these issues within FIFA that leads me to conclude that my role in this process is at an end."
For the first two years after my July 2012 appointment as independent Chairman of the FIFA Ethics Committee's Investigatory Chamber, I felt that the Ethics Committee was making real progress in advancing ethics enforcement at FIFA. In recent months, that changed.
On September 5, 2014, I and Cornel Borbely, the Deputy Chair of the Investigatory Chamber, sent a "Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process" (the "Report") to the FIFA Ethics Committee's Adjudicatory Chamber. The Report identified serious and wide-ranging issues with the bidding and selection process. (Mr. Borbely also filed separate reports from his inquiries into the activities of the bid teams from Russia and the United States.)
Soon after, the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber, Hans-Joachim Eckert, indicated publicly that only limited information from the Report would be made public. Concerned that insufficient transparency would not serve FIFA's interests, I issued a public statement calling on the FIFA Executive Committee to authorize the appropriate publication of the Report. The Executive Committee took no action on this subject during its September 2014 meetings - other than to refer me to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee for allegedly violating the Code of Ethics through my public comments, namely, my public request that the Executive Committee authorize appropriate publication of the Report and the on-the-record statement Mr. Borbely and I released concerning watches given to certain football officials. The Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee, Claudio Sulser, ultimately rejected the Executive Committee's referral.
On November 13, 2014, Mr. Eckert issued a 42-page "Statement of the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee on the Report on the Inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Bidding Process prepared by the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee" (the "Eckert Decision"). In a cover letter, Mr. Eckert described the statement as his "findings, including certain descriptions of the contents of the Investigatory Chamber's report."
The issues raised by Mr. Eckert's selection and omission of material from the Report, and his additional comments, went far beyond the initial transparency concerns. As my public statement at the time explained, the Eckert Decision contained "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of facts and conclusions." Accordingly, I appealed.
A brief I filed with the FIFA Appeal Committee on November 24, 2014, outlined the Eckert Decision's most serious failings. Among other points, the brief explained why, when viewed in the context of the Report it purported to summarize, no principled approach could justify the Eckert Decision's edits, omissions, and additions.
Yesterday's decision by the Appeal Committee declined to address these points. Instead, the Appeal Committee rejected my appeal on procedural grounds, concluding that "it is not necessary for the FIFA Appeals Committee to enter into considerations on the substance of the appeal." The Appeal Committee found that the Eckert Decision was "merely a personal opinion on the Report" and had "no legally binding effect whatsoever." It reached this conclusion even though, under Article 36 of the Code of Ethics, only "final decisions" may be made public, as the Eckert Decision, which was published on FIFA's website, obviously was. The Appeal Committee also overlooked the Eckert Decision's self-described "findings," including one stating that "the evaluation of the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cups bidding process is closed for the FIFA Ethics Committee." FIFA President Blatter recently reaffirmed that "finding" during an interview published by FIFA, stating: "Furthermore, there is no change to Judge Eckert's statement that the investigation into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups is concluded."
I disagree with the Appeal Committee's decision.
It now appears that, at least for the foreseeable future, the Eckert Decision will stand as the final word on the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process. While the Appeal Committee's decision notes that further appeal may be taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, I have concluded that such a course of action would not be practicable in this case. No independent governance committee, investigator, or arbitration panel can change the culture of an organization. And while the November 13, 2014, Eckert Decision made me lose confidence in the independence of the Adjudicatory Chamber, it is the lack of leadership on these issues within FIFA that leads me to conclude that my role in this process is at an end.
Accordingly, effective today, December 17, 2014, I am resigning as independent Chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee.
Football's world governing body FIFA said Tuesday it had set up a $100 million World Cup Legacy Fund for Brazil, aimed at sports facilities, youth and women's football, and medical and health projects.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter pledged two years ago to give some of the revenue from the 2014 World Cup back to grassroots programs in the South American country, which spent about $15 billion organizing last year's World Cup.
Spending on the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics is expected to top $15 billion.
FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke, speaking in Sao Paulo, said the World Cup "inevitably has an impact on society and the environment in the host country." He said organizers had a "responsibility to limit the associated negative effects, while at the same time maximizing the huge positive impact it can have."
It will take years to assess the impact of the World Cup in Brazil.
It is clear that Brazilian politicians underestimated the costs, stadiums were late getting ready, and many related infrastructure projects were cancelled or have yet to be completed. On the field, matches were high-scoring and jam-packed, and a heavy police and military presence helped discourage the kind of protests that overshadowed the 2013 Confederations Cup.
Brazil was eliminated in a stunning 7-1 loss to Germany in the semifinals.
FIFA, a not-for-profit organization based in Switzerland, generated more than $4 billion in sales from the 2014 tournament. The figure could reach $5 billion for Russia's 2018 World Cup.
An analysis earlier this month said Brazil spent about $3 billion on new and refurbished stadiums, 90% of it being public money. Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had promised all stadiums would be privately financed.
Government officials acknowledged that public holidays associated with the World Cup were partly to blame for the country falling into a technical recession late last year.
Four of the 12 stadiums used for the World Cup are almost certain to become white elephants. Some are faced with hosting weddings and children's events to generate income. Several are expected to host a few games for the Rio Olympics.
Valcke acknowledged that "some of the stadiums are not used permanently." He said it would "take time to use all the stadiums at their maximum."
He also responded to criticism of FIFA in the Brazilian media.
"Our commitment [is] to be in Brazil after the World Cup, not to leave, as some media said — I mean, [comments like] 'FIFA is coming to Brazil taking the money out of Brazil and run away from Brazil right after the final'. It is not true.
"FIFA is committed to develop and support football wherever we organize our events."
Despite Brazil's prestige in the game, Jose Maria Marin, president of the Brazilian Football Federation, said some of the legacy money was targeted for the 15 states where the game is not as well-funded.
"We took on a commitment with the states that did not host the event to make sure the benefits of the World Cup will reach places where, although the love of football is huge, the structure offered to the community still cannot be compared to that which we see in the bigger cities," he said.
FIFA said the Brazilian federation was responsible for the projects — subject to FIFA approval. FIFA said the spending would be audited by accounting firm KPMG.
In an unexpected announcement, FIFA awarded Fox Sports and Telemundo the broadcast rights to 2026 World Cup on Thursday.
It's not a surprise that Fox will broadcast the tournament. But it's a shock that FIFA awarded them the rights 11 years in advance without a bidding war with ESPN and NBC.
An ESPN representative told Business Insider the company was not involved in any bidding for the 2026 tournament, presumably because there wasn't one.
The last time World Cup broadcast rights were awarded was 2011, when Fox outbid ESPN for the rights to the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. That time around, FIFA had Fox, NBC, and ESPN present their bids in Zurich. When the news was announced, ESPN made a conciliatory statement on its loss:
We made a disciplined bid that would have been both valuable to FIFA and profitable for our company, while continuing to grow our unprecedented coverage of the World Cup and Women’s World Cup events. We were aggressive while remaining prudent from a business perspective.
There was no such statement this time, because there was no bidding war.
NBC declined to comment on whether they had an opportunity to bid on the English-language rights for the 2026 tournament (NBC owns Telemundo, the Spanish-language rights holder for the 2026 World Cup), directing such questions to FIFA.
We reached out to FIFA for comment.
Fox released the following statement and declined further comment:
We are truly honored that FIFA has elected to extend FOX Sports’ rights to the portfolio of FIFA events including the FIFA World Cup™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup™ through 2026. These events are some of the world’s most important sports competitions, and it is our privilege to be entrusted with these rights in the United States. We’re looking forward to the kick-off of FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015™ in June with great anticipation.
To make the move even more curious, there's a distinct possibility that the 2026 World Cup will take place in the US. The US bid on the 2022 tournament but lost out to Qatar. By 2026, it'll have been 32 years since the World Cup was held in North America — the longest gap for any continent but Australia.
So FIFA is potentially selling the rights to a hometown World Cup in the biggest media market in the world, and it doesn't bring in ESPN to drive up the price?
One popular theory in the American soccer world is that FIFA is giving Fox the 2026 tournament without a bidding war in exchange for Fox's not causing a stink when FIFA moves the 2022 Qatar World Cup to the winter. Qatar initially promised to hold the tournament in the summer with the help of futuristic cooling systems. But that plan has been abandoned, and FIFA is close to announcing when in winter the tournament will be played.
This is bad for Fox. In the summer, there are no other relevant sporting events to compete with the World Cup. In winter, there are the NFL playoffs and, potentially, the 2022 Olympics.
When asked about a winter World Cup in 2013, Fox Sports said, "Fox Sports bought the World Cup rights with the understanding they would be in the summer as they have been since the 1930s."
Whatever the reason, Thursday's news is a massive victory for Fox, which will now be the country's World Cup broadcaster until at least 2030.
Qatar originally promised to hold the tournament in the summer with the help of space-age cooling technologies that would lower the temperature from 120 degrees to 80 degrees inside the stadiums. Those technologies remain untested with seven years to go, and now the plan has been abandoned.
Qatar's bid, which was centered around a June/July World Cup, beat out the U.S.'s bid in 2010.
A November-December World Cup would not conflict with the 2022 Olympics, but it will still cause a host of problems. European leagues will have to completely reschedule their seasons. In the U.S., the tournament will conflict with the NFL, NBA, and NHL seasons.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter wrote a column about racism in the organization's weekly magazine.
In denouncing racism, he cited "research into human evolution" that he says shows racism is hardwired into our DNA. Racism is natural, he says, but we must fight to "suppress gut feelings."
Here's his take:
Some scientists claim there is a germ of racist thinking within all of us. Their conclusions are based on research into human evolution. A fear of strangers and a suspicion of the unknown is a basic or ‘caveman’ instinct and part of a strategy for survival in an age when mammoths were served up for breakfast.
Tens of thousands of years have passed but the basic instinct has remained, the researchers say. If so, it is disquieting, because it would mean racism is in our DNA. However, the evolutionary biologists say, there is an antidote: the intellect. It can suppress gut feelings, differentiate us from animals, and make us humans with clear principles and values.
This does not mean that more intelligent people are less susceptible, or vice-versa (although the incident in Paris might appear to suggest this).
FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar in 2010 over the United States. It instantly became the most controversial hosting decision in the history of soccer's international governing body.
One of the primary issues with the bid — aside from concerns about human rights, cost, and bribery allegations— was the weather. The World Cup has always been held in summer, but temperatures in Doha, the Qatari capital, reach an average high above 105 degrees Fahrenheit in June.
The Qatari bid committee presented a solution to this problem in 2010: advanced air-conditioning technologies that would cool stadiums and other World Cup-related areas to about 80 degrees. Those technologies have never been used on such a large scale, and despite the organizers' persistent claims they were feasible, they remain shrouded in mystery seven years before the tournament.
It took FIFA five years to abandon hope for a summer World Cup in 2022, but it was actually skeptical from the beginning, before Qatar was even awarded the tournament.
From a medical point of view, barring unforeseen epidemics or developments, there is no major risk involved in staging the event in this country. However, the fact that the competition is planned in June/July, the two hottest months of the year in this region, has to be considered as a potential health risk for players, spectators, officials and the FIFA family in both open training sites and in stadiums and necessitates the taking of specific precautions (for example: hydration schemes, sun shields, ice, cooling mist, cooling breaks).
The bid evaluation also contained an operational risk report that was skeptical of the bid. FIFA determined that Qatar posed a medium or high risk in eight of nine categories. In explaining why Qatar was a high risk in the "team facilities" category, FIFA noted that the facilities did not yet exist and the cooling technology that would make them bearable in 105-degree heat was untested.
The US' bid received better marks across the board:
In 2014, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said giving Qatar the World Cup under the assumption that it would be held in summer was a "mistake."
"Of course, it was a mistake. You know, one makes a lot of mistakes in life," he said on Swiss TV. "The technical report indicated clearly that it was too hot in summer, but despite that the executive committee decided with quite a big majority that the tournament would be in Qatar."
Assuming a November-December World Cup, Europe's largest, most lucrative leagues are looking at a break running from at least mid-October to mid-January to account for pre-tournament preparation and post-tournament rest. In a statement, the European Club Association demanded that FIFA recoup it for revenue lost during that period:
For the football family the rescheduling of the FIFA World Cup 2022 presents a difficult and challenging task. All match calendars across the world will have to accommodate such tournament in 2022/23, which requires everyone's willingness to compromise.
However, the European clubs and leagues cannot be expected to bear the costs for such rescheduling. We expect the clubs to be compensated for the damage that a final decision would cause.
It's a headache, one that could have easily been avoided if FIFA hadn't ignored its own report in 2010.
The 2021 Confederations Cup will not be held in Qatar because of the climate, FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke told the AFP on Wednesday.
The Confederations Cup is a tournament that traditionally serves as a test event one year before the World Cup. It has always been held during the summer between European professional league seasons.
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar was moved to winter because of the oppressive summer heat. Since FIFA can't disrupt domestic leagues with a winter Confederations Cup in 2021, and it's already established that it's too hot to play soccer in Qatar in summer, the tournament will be held in somewhere else in Asia during the June-July window, AFP reports.
A FIFA task force said on Tuesday that they were looking into using another international competition as a test event in November-December of 2021, though it's unclear what that could be.
A director at the World Bank says he's considering suing Microsoft after his 13-year-old son was able to spend $4,500 on characters in soccer video game FIFA over several months without him realising.
Hillman, who works as director of corporate communications at the World Bank, says that Microsoft refused to refund him the money his son spent on the game.
Our policy states that all purchases are final and non-refundable. A purchase confirmation email was sent to email: XXXX.XXXX@hotmail.com [Hillman's son] each time a purchase was made because that is the email that was designated as a contact email on the billing profile …….. you are responsible for any material that a user of your Services account accesses or is denied access to (including as a result of your use or non-use of Parental Controls). You acknowledge that use of our settings is not a substitute for your personal supervision of minors that use your Services account.
"Losing $4,5000 for many families would be a life-changing disaster," Hillman writes. "For us it is very upsetting and means we'll have to tighten our belts and forgo some luxuries but we will recover relatively quickly."
Nonetheless, he's still angry with Microsoft, questioning why there were no automatic checks on how much could be spent in the game, or why there was no option to have it request the card details be re-entered for each purchase (Hillman entered them himself initially to pay for the game). He also says the "treatment we have had at the hands of Microsoft has been appalling," keeping them waiting for more than a week despite earlier assurances.
The issue of parental controls on payments has been a hot topic in recent years. Apple has previously been criticised after media reports of children spending hundreds— or even thousands — on their parents' cards. It's possible to lock down iOS devices so card details need to be reentered if it's 15 minutes after the last purchase, however.
"If Microsoft wanted to spare thousands of parents from the frustration, anger and sometimes, serious financial consequences then it could find hundred ways to do it," Hillman concluded. "If there's a lawyer out there that wants to start a class-action against Microsoft and force them into compensation and adopting a better policy I'll happily sign up."
A Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider that the company is "aware and [is] investigating the case internally." When asked whether Microsoft's controls on in-game purchases are adequate, the spokesperson responded with the following statement:
We continually evaluate feedback from parents and the Xbox Live community, and acknowledge and investigate concerns around alleged unapproved purchases made with their parents’ or caregivers’ payment accounts. This is why we provide parents with tools in parental controls to block premium content purchasing on the accounts of their children and teens. However, purchases made using a parent’s payment account are legitimate transactions under the Xbox Live Terms of Use. We encourage parents to use the many platform and service features we make available to prevent unapproved charges.
