Brazilian Soccer and Corruption.

Lula’s legacy to Brazil is the expansion and extension of corrupt practices to, arguably, all areas of governance and administration. This has been a cynically applied process for which the ruling party, PT, can never be forgiven. The first ‘party of the people’ has shown itself to have even more capacity for rapacious greed than the leaders of the past. Corruption has become institutionalized under Lula. Even the judiciary prefers to not offer judgment on guilt and innocence when there may be a political dimension to corruption – i.e. nearly all situations, and refers matters to the President for a Judgment of Solomon. Thus the legal process receives party-biased treatment or, in many high-profile cases, no treatment at all! Why no anti-corruption marches in the streets across this great country? Brazilians have become inured and desensitized by so much corruption; it has become accepted as ‘the way things are’ and will always be. President Lula has let down his people in the most fundamental way possible.

Jerome Valcke, the Fifa general secretary, has admitted that he is alarmed at how little work has been carried out in the 30 months since Brazil was unanimously chosen to hold the competition. It is thought the game's governing body is keen to avoid a repeat of the concerns over South Africa's infrastructure, still lingering with the start of the tournament just weeks away. "It is amazing that Brazil is already very late," said Valcke. "I got a report on the status of the Brazilian stadiums and I have to say it is not very nice. The stadiums are the basic points we need to have a World Cup and in Brazil, for the time being, most of the deadlines are already over and we have to work on new deadlines. "They are proving how difficult it is to hold a World Cup in Brazil, just as it was in South Africa. The red light has been switched on. Brazil is not on the right path. This year there is a presidential election, so almost nothing will happen. Next year, carnival comes along. So is everything going to start only after carnival? "All the things they have promised, all the commitments from different people, they have to deliver these commitments. We do not want a hasty World Cup done at the last minute." That is exactly what they do in Brazil: leave for the last minute and skip bid tender procedures!

Brazil is second-largest consumer of cocaine in the world; IBGE, the main statistical institution in Brazil, has just released the information that illiteracy in Brazil increased during Lula's reign. Basic sanitation is in the same level as it was at the time of his coronation. 50,000 Brazilians die from violent deaths, most caused by guns and drugs smuggled into the country by the FARC Marxist terrorists, allies of Lula. Outbreaks of diseases like dengue is higly expected!

The country keep experiencing blackouts and this situation is expected to aggravate since there is no suitable investment in the sector , there are lack of maintenance a lot of corruption. Besides Brazil's electricity rates remain among the world's highest. Dilma is always preceded and followed by corruption scandals in her short public career.

Brazil still has a woeful record on education, is weighed down by a government bureaucracy that Steve Jobs recently cited as the reason why he would not be putting an Apple shop in Rio de Janeiro, and must deal with a potholed transport infrastructure screaming for investment.

Ricardo Teixeira has spent the past two decades doing little but generating suspicion of corruption in all his dealings running Brazilian soccer. Teixeira is head of the Local Organizing Committee, and also sits on FIFA's 24 man Executive Committee. He also eyes the FIFA Presidency! From there he is able to spread corruption among all of FIFA affiliates!

Brazilians' chauvinistic passion to support its athletes in the "hemispheric Olympics'' frequently turned as ugly as nationalism often does, leading to questions about whether they would behave similarly at the Olympics that Rio will host in 2016. The ferocity of the booing has shocked even battle-hardened Games veterans like Canada's Susan Nattrass, who was stunned to hear cheering each time she missed a shot in the trapshooting competition. “To cheer for their own shooter when they hit the target, which we don't often see in our sport, is one thing,” Nattrass, Canada's flag bearer in the opening ceremonies, said. “But to cheer when the other shooters miss is just wrong. It’s poor etiquette.” The hosts offer no apologies for their behavior. Claudio Motta, media manager for the Brazilian Olympic Committee, said Brazilian sports fans were weaned on a soccer culture where such behavior was not only acceptable but expected. It is really poor sportsmanship.

Olympics and World Cup is always a bad deal, even when the perception is good!

Olympics or World Cup are never a good investment, even in places like Atlanta or Los Angeles. University of Maryland Professor Dennis Coates wrote a series of op-eds recently about the US World Cup bid. This is from his Atlanta piece: The bad news is that despite the U.S. Bid Committee's argument that the tournament will be a major moneymaker for the U.S. economy, the facts don't back up the claims. What Americans Need to Know About a U.S. World Cup Bid," which reviewed the economics of mega events and found that among other aberrations, a rosy prediction of a $4 billion positive impact from the 1994 World Cup was far off target. Instead of a $4 billion gain, post-Cup analysis revealed up to a $9 billion loss across the country. You can wonder how big will be the negative impact in a so corrupt country like Brazil!

How do we call people who campaign for one thing and do or support exactly the opposite they are campaigning for? Very simple: everywhere in every language just one name: HYPOCRITE. Soccer fans everywhere knows FIFA's Fair Play Campaign. Soccer fans everywhere also know what happened during the match between Ireland and France: That deliberate hand ball by Thierry Henry. The least FIFA should do in cases like that is a harsh punishment of the player to discourage such behavior in the future. Please do not forget also Maradona`s hand in 1986. How Sepp Blatter can be so boldfaced and do nothing about that and still demands fair play from others? The answer is very clear: Soccer fans are sadly mistaken when they expect soccer handlers to be fair and the fast growing biased press contributes for this chaotic mess . People find it delightful to destroy values such as sportsmanship with press support or neglect. Perhaps I am missing the point here, maybe the thing is LET US SPREAD THE HYPOCRISY. This is far beyond sports. In political affairs it is a must!

FIFA'S Statement on Thierry Henry (FIFA.com) Monday 18 January 2010 On 2 December 2009, the FIFA Executive Committee asked the FIFA Disciplinary Committee to analyse the handling offense committed by Thierry Henry during the France v. Republic of Ireland match on 18 November 2009, and to consider the possible disciplinary consequences. At its meeting on 18 January 2010, the Disciplinary Committee reached the conclusion that there was no legal foundation for the committee to consider the case because handling the ball cannot be regarded as a serious infringement as stipulated in article 77a) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code. There is no other legal text that would allow the committee to impose sanctions for any incidents missed by match officials. What article they have for such cases!!! This is a slap on the face of all decent soccer fans!

Here we go again: Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as they say, and FIFA has managed to carve itself a niche as the ultimate untouchable in the sporting world, even to the extent that it puts its own laws above those of actual governments by forbidding political interference in football matters under pain of expulsion for the guilty member country. Jerome Valcke is French and so is Thierry Henry!!! What to say to Irish people?

Ricardo Teixeira has spent the past two decades doing little but generating suspicion of corruption in all his dealings running Brazilian soccer. Teixeira is head of the Local Organizing Committee, and also sits on FIFA's 24 man Executive Committee. He also eyes the FIFA Presidency! From there he will be able to spread corruption among all of FIFA affiliates! Like politicians he also clings on to power like barnacle on a rust ship.

By Keir Radnedge
On January 10, in Zurich, FIFA holds its annual gala. The major social event of the world federation’s year sees it present a host of awards. I have a prize-winner to suggest: FIFA’s fair play prize should go to the Sunday Times. Had it not been for the newspaper’s painstaking, time- and money-consuming investigative work, then Messrs Adamu, Temarii, Fusimalohi, Aloulou, Bhamjee and Diakite would still be talking corrupt practices in the grandest corridors of world football. Jerome Valcke, FIFA’s secretary-general, in response to a question about the credibility of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup ballots on December 2, told the Ethics Committee media conference: “This has shown we have all the tools to ensure that no-one can challenge the way we run the process.” If so, why was it a newspaper which showed up Adamu and Co for what they are and what was going on at the heart of the empire commanded by FIFA President Sepp Blatter and Valcke? If they had known, they would have taken action, wouldn’t they? One must assume so. The truth is, they knew nothing until the Sunday Times, metaphorically, opened their eyes. Given that context of ignorance to unethical behaviour at the heart of the executive committee, full credit to Ethics Committee chairman Claudio Sulser for taking the drastic action he did; his zero tolerance policy made this the most painfully embarrassing and humiliating day in FIFA’s 106 years. Whether that will harm Blatter’s grip on power at the election congress next year, whether it will harm Valcke’s status as his right-hand executive officer, appears unlikely. But it was depressing to hear Sulser lecture journalists present at the “mea culpa press conference” on media ethics. He may have been regularly on target when he played in attack for Grasshopper and Switzerland, but he was badly off target here. Sulser would not have had a single case come before him, let alone seven (charges of bid vote collusion were dismissed) had it not been for the Sunday Times. In doing what it did the newspaper stood up for fair play in world football, for fair play at the heart of FIFA, for fair play in the World Cup bidding process. That deserves to be recognised. Freedom of the media, freedom of the right to investigate wrongdoing and expose it, is the mark of a society which values truth, transparency, honesty and credibility above all else. Above money, commercial convenience, personal fiefdoms. Fair play to the Sunday Times. If FIFA does not have the grace to acknowledge the fact, then suspicion will linger that what really upset its movers and shakers was exposure and not corrupt practices. When the revelations were published, FIFA’s own local newspaper – the Zurich daily, Tages Anzeiger – headlined an article on the scandal by saying: “Blatter should thank journalists.” He has the perfect stage: in Zurich on January 10. This is an edited version of an article first published on the AIPS website. Keir Radnedge is editor of the SJA Bulletin and chairman of the AIPS football commission.

Thursday, February 28, 2002 By Andrew Jennings The presidential black Mercedes pulled away from the front door of the luxury Hotel Salam in Bamako, Mali, host of last month's African Nations Cup. Blatter: Truth revealed? (BenRadford/Allsport) In the back seat was the man who has it all. Not FIFA president Sepp Blatter, but the man who created him and the soccer empire now crumbling under the weight of its own corruption. Brazil's Joao Havelange, now aged 84, had FIFA in his iron grasp from 1974 until 1998, when he pulled all world soccer's levers to place his protege (Blatter) on his throne. He had little choice. The front runner in early 1998 to replace Havelange was Europe's Lennart Johansson. The big, blond Swede was globally respected for his integrity. He had to be prevented from discovering FIFA's dark secrets and the sleazy truth about Havelange's 24-year dictatorial reign. And Havelange, forced to quit the presidency after the debacle of awarding this year's World Cup Finals to both Korea and Japan, was unwilling to surrender the life of privilege and luxury provided by the world of football. Blatter, now 65, won the presidency, and Havelange took the title of honorary president, continuing to enjoy his lavish FIFA perks. His chauffeur from the old days has been kept on and was even flown out to Mali. He was reportedly seen piloting the honorary president around Salt Lake City earlier this month. In the clubby world of sports leaders, Havelange is also a senior member of the International Olympic Committee. He would never have lasted as FIFA president without the German entrepreneur Horst Dassler. The legendary boss of the adidas company, Dassler routinely arranged the election of the presidents of the IOC, world athletics and many other federations. In return, his Swiss-based marketing company, International Sport and Leisure, acquired exclusive marketing contracts. Dassler died in 1987 and adidas has since changed hands. Jean Marie Weber became president of ISL and continued that company's close relations with sports leaders. Havelange had taken power with a mixture of promises and manipulations. Even then, Africa was seen as the crucial voting bloc and one observer of the vote in Frankfurt in 1974 claimed it was won with 'small brown envelopes going into big black hands'. It was alleged that diplomats based in Europe turned up to vote, instead of members of their national federations. Havelange had toured the world with Brazil's sublime soccer team and visited countries almost unknown to the incumbent, Britain's Sir Stanley Rous. Havelange promised an expansion in coaching and tournaments. It would all benefit football. The problem was that he did not have the money to keep his election pledges. Dassler solved his problem. He was given the marketing contract, sweet-talked the Coca-Cola company to back the alien sport of soccer - and everybody got rich. As FIFA grew, Dassler hand-picked Blatter to run the new soccer programmes. Blatter was taken to Dassler's base in Landesheim, France, and trained in his ways of doing business. At the end of 1997, Johansson, then 68, was the only candidate to replace Havelange. Blatter attended the Confederations Cup, held that year in Saudi Arabia, then flew off to Qatar in the Gulf to meet his backers. But he refused to declare that he was a candidate. As UEFA fumed, he delayed announcing his candidature until late March 1998. Blatter's initial problem was in finding a major soccer nation to sponsor him. He recruited Michel Platini, the celebrated former France captain, to his election team and the French federation duly announced that it was switching its support away from Johansson. Blatter was up and running. It was widely rumored that French president Jacques Chirac, himself under investigation for sleaze, placed personal calls to the presidents of French-speaking countries in Africa, asking them to pressurize their football federations to back Blatter. Behind the scenes Havelange waged a relentless campaign for Blatter. He should have been neutral, remained above the fray. Instead he secretly promised cash and favours to delegates to the Paris election in return for votes for Blatter. Soccernet has acquired some of the correspondence. It seems that Havelange was working in concert with Mohamed Bin Hamman from Qatar, alleged to be the paymaster behind much of Blatter's vote-gathering in Africa. In early April, Havelange wrote to the general secretary of Somali soccer 'confirming my promise to you concerning the presence of two delegates for the FIFA Congress in Paris. The cost of traveling for one delegate will be charged to FIFA, as decided, and the other, as I promised you, will be my responsibility, as well as the cost of accommodation.' The FIFA president added the promise of two free trips to Brazil. Midway through April, Havelange was at it again. This time he was courting the president and general secretary of the East African soccer federation. He promised: 'The FIFA finance department will soon pay you the amount of $50,000 for the functioning of your secretariat for the next two years. Please send FIFA your bank address and number of account.' It is surprising that FIFA did not already have on file the bank details of one of its affiliated federations. Havelange went on to pledge a free fax machine and photocopier to each association in the region. Even more surprising was that Antonio Matarrese of UEFA, the vice-president of FIFA's finance committee, was unaware of the payments. When he found out on the eve of the election, he wrote to the finance director demanding to know who had approved the payment, what bank account it had gone to and for a list of all similar transactions in the previous three months. He was denied this information. Havelange was even more explicit in a letter to Hong Kong's Timothy Fok, whose tycoon father Henry had been a member of FIFA's executive committee. Havelange asked Fok Jnr to 'use your influence on the federations of Hong Kong, Macau, China and North Korea' to vote for Blatter. Following Blatter's election, Henry Fok was given FIFA's Order of Merit and last year Timothy Fok was appointed to the IOC. Earlier this month the IOC appointed a Qatar prince, aged 21, and a Saudi prince, aged 23, to its ranks. Blatter went into the Paris election on June 8 with the backing of Jack Warner, who has controlled the 35 votes in the Caribbean, Central America and North America for the last decade, and his American general secretary, Chuck Blazer. Blatter could also count on the 10 votes from South America, heavily influenced by Havelange's son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, the corrupt boss of Brazilian football, and Paraguay's Nicolas Leoz, also a member of FIFA's executive committee. Europe, which had initially been 100 per cent behind Johansson, was peeled like an onion, and the English FA was among the defectors. Africa was also divided, but until the result was declared, few outside Blatter's camp realized how devastating was the damage to African unity. In a last-minute gesture to rally his troops, Havelange strode across the floor of the FIFA convention and publicly embraced Saudi Arabia's Prince Faisal Fahd Abdul Aziz. It was rumoured that the Saudis, along with Qatar, had invested $5million to fund Blatter. The prince died a year later, a victim, said his critics, of debauchery and drug addiction. The embrace was the cue for the voting. As Blatter's camp had predicted, he defeated Johansson by 111 votes to 80. The Swede was devastated. With tears in his eyes, he conceded victory. At Blatter's Press conference, German reporter Jens Wienreich asked him about allegations that his campaign had been funded from the Gulf and he replied: 'The match is over. The players have already gone to the dressing-room, I will not respond.' That evening Blatter went to Le Meridien Hotel where most rank-and-file delegates were staying, some at the expense of their national associations, others on the largesse of Havelange and his backers in the Gulf. Blatter schmoozed through the lobby, shaking a hand here, clasping a shoulder there. Later that night, the mood changed when Issa Hayatou, president of African soccer, arrived, roused from his bed at the Hotel Bristol by a call telling him that bundles of cash were being handed out to delegates who had voted for Blatter. 'Unfortunately, by the time I arrived it had gone quiet,' he said later. The Empire was intact. Havelange had seamlessly secured the succession. World football was now a trinket owned and shame-lessly displayed by oil billionaires from the Gulf whose national soccer teams have yet to make an impact on the game. It was not to last. The wounds from the dirty campaign ran deep and the sores would not heal. Blatter lacked the indomitable arrogance of Havelange and was unable to dispel rumours that the election had been bought. Europe would never forgive him for the election. Asian football, divided between the East which supported Johansson and the Gulf which had bankrolled Blatter, were united in revolt at the FIFA Congress in Los Angeles in 1999, when Blatter denied them an additional place in the World Cup Finals. UEFA stepped in and offered help with the compromise of a play-off. Iran, however, were unable to capitalise on the opportunity, losing to the Republic of Ireland. The debacle over the hosting of the 2006 World Cup Finals weakened Blatter further. Africa was outraged that he did not keep his campaign promise to send the championships to South Africa. Remarkably, Blatter was trying to recycle the promises in Tokyo yesterday. Oceania, fierce Blatter supporters, were being seduced with the prospect of an automatic World Cup Finals place. Africa, increasingly sceptical, was promised the possibility of a jointly hosted World Cup in 2010 and the fiercely anti-Blatter Asians were told they would have to earn an extra spot in the 2006 Finals. There seems as much cynicism this week as there was in July last year when Blatter was approaching a potentially damaging defeat at the conference in Buenos Aires.

Andrew Jennings is the award-winning author of three books tackling the subject of corruption inside the International Olympic Committee.

BRIBES: IOC corruption rears its ugly head as Chicago shunned and Rio parties.

Chicago once had a reputation as the world’s sleaziest city. Organised crime, notoriously rigged elections, public officials whose decisions were sold are part of the city’s legend. As recently as last year, Chicago saw a monumental scandal involving its state’s governor who had appeared to be keen to actually sell the vacated Senate position previously occupied by President Barack Obama and was forced to resign as a result. Of course the truth is that public corruption is rare in the United States, when it occurs it is very often exposed. Transparency International – the leading NGO analyzing political corruption – says the US has relatively very little of it. Only countries like Australia have even less (a fact that must astound readers of The Age/Sydney Morning Herald). CHICAGO TRUMPED AT ITS TRADITIONAL GAME But for all its reputation as a tough city where any deal can be done if the price is right, Chicago yesterday ran into a vastly superior unit in terms of corruption: the International Olympic Committee. Its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games was widely expected to do very well, if not succeed, due to its professionalism and the personal hands-on involvement of the First Family who might be struggling to maintain their popularity at home but remain very highly regarded around the world. Chicago’s bid was eliminated very early in the process as it turned out. And it’s not unreasonable to consider why that might have been. IOC DECISION-MAKERS SELL THEIR VOTES The IOC has been previously revealed as being riddled with bribe-takers. An internal inquiry conducted by a long-time member of the IOC found that no fewer than 20 of 110 IOC members had accepted bribes including lavish holidays, hospitality, expensive gifts, jobs, free university places for relatives, cosmetic surgery and so on. Aside from the cash for vote-casting, corruption is in the eye of the beholder. Any pretension that unbiased and impartial decisions are made by IOC decision-makers whose reasoning for selecting party-town Rio de Janeiro boiled down to their allegiance to the Rio bid boss Carlos Nuzman who called in many old favours to get his own way. Associated Press explains: Nuzman is a suave, savvy Olympic insider who controls every important decision-making position in Rio’s bid. So in addition to familiarity, he offered his colleagues one-stop shopping for all their needs. And we all know what that means. While the IOC members are now no longer permitted to visit bid cities which provided the framework for many bribes, where there’s a will to bribe, there’ll always be a way. And it’s clear that Brazil’s bid was run by those firmly in touch with “the needs” of many IOC members, particularly from the developing world. Australia’s representative on the IOC Kevan Gosper expressed shock at the decision to knock out Chicago’s superior presentation so early. And while we wouldn’t for a second suggest the prosperous and pompous Gosper would take a bribe, he seems reluctant to point the finger at those who do for fear of disturbing the collegial atmosphere around the IOC feasting table. He thought the result dubious too but naturally wasn’t accusing anyone of taking bribes: Senior Australian IOC member Kevan Gosper surmised that Asian voters may have banded together for Tokyo in the first round, at Chicago’s expense. “I’m shocked,” Gosper said. “The whole thing doesn’t make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote.” And of course the other explanation is that many of the decision-makers were motivated by bribes. Given the IOC’s form, the shocking results of even internal inquiries, frequent resignations due to scandal, the selection of Brazil, a jurisdiction where there’ll be much less scrutiny of bribes already paid and bribes to be paid to members of the IOC, is hardly a surprise. Chicago was the unbackable favourite to win for the best part of a year as it became clear to observers and commentators they were going to have to the strongest, best-resourced bid, heavily backed by a US President more popular overseas than at home. Despite that, Chicago was eliminated in the first-round. It is a remarkable tribute to the corruption of the International Olympic Committee that the city where American politics is played at its toughest level, where there seem to be bribery scandals occurring reasonably regularly was just never in the race against a body so riddled with wrongdoing it has become a sick joke and a profound insult to the incredible efforts of Olympic athletes and the billions who cheer them on. Regarding World cup, Teixeira, Havelange and Blatter manipulate the bids at their own will.