FIFA

briantrumpet

Slowmart wrote:

And the clamour of brands paying to be associated with the tournament was until yesterday unabated.

I doubt anyone views football as the beautiful game anymore.

I wonder if there will have been more people killed in constructing the venues than will be involved in playing the games. How many deaths per player? Over 1,000 deaths already, and maybe 600 players involved in the finals? Or, put it another way, about 30 deaths per team in the finals. But it's all fine, Sepp Blatter's not worried. Though obviously he can't be expected to know everything that's going on.

turbotommy

briantrumpet wrote:

Slowmart wrote:

And the clamour of brands paying to be associated with the tournament was until yesterday unabated.

I doubt anyone views football as the beautiful game anymore.

I wonder if there will have been more people killed in constructing the venues than will be involved in playing the games. How many deaths per player? Over 1,000 deaths already, and maybe 600 players involved in the finals? Or, put it another way, about 30 deaths per team in the finals. But it's all fine, Sepp Blatter's not worried. Though obviously he can't be expected to know everything that's going on.

Apparently the death rate equates to 80 dead for each game that will be played in the World Cup. Quite disgusting.

It won't stop people going to the World Cup though. Or buying products from the companies that are endorsing it. So why should we expect anything to change?

briantrumpet

TurboTommy wrote:

Apparently the death rate equates to 80 dead for each game that will be played in the World Cup. Quite disgusting.

It won't stop people going to the World Cup though. Or buying products from the companies that are endorsing it. So why should we expect anything to change?

Whichever way you look at it (and that's a excellently graphic way), that any organisation could let this go on in the tournament it oversees and promotes, without batting an eyelid, is quite beyond my comprehension.

briantrumpet

I suppose this rather sums up what I was thinking: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... litics-end

ben@31

On the radio Seb Blatter said he's not going anywhere and it's everyone else's fault but his.
Obviously he's never heard of management responsibility and supervision of those working under him. If it's everyone else's fault, sounds like he should go for having no control over his organisation.

However, dodgy bids and corruption in awarding contracts doesn't surprise me. I'm sure it's nothing new and been happening in every other industry and politics since the year dot.

ai_1

ben@31 wrote:

On the radio Seb Blatter said he's not going anywhere and it's everyone else's fault but his.
Obviously he's never heard of management responsibility and supervision of those working under him. If it's everyone else's fault, sounds like he should go for having no control over his organisation.

It's not like anything he says is worth listening to. He's got zero credibility.

briantrumpet

Ai_1 wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

On the radio Seb Blatter said he's not going anywhere and it's everyone else's fault but his.
Obviously he's never heard of management responsibility and supervision of those working under him. If it's everyone else's fault, sounds like he should go for having no control over his organisation.

It's not like anything he says is worth listening to. He's got zero credibility.

I'm reminded of the classic Gordon Brown 'apology': "I take full responsibility for what happened, and that's why the person who was responsible went [lost his job] immediately."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fHspjXw8Y

briantrumpet

It's just struck me that Blatter's denials and determination to hang on is a spooky echo of Pat McQuiad's. Have they got the same scriptwriter?

tangled_metal

USA is leading the charge due to a 1970s piece of legislation which makes any other fraud or corruption where money is wired through USA, carried out in US dollars or basically having anything to do with USA or US dollars. Interestingly the UK has a similar anti bribery law from IIRC from a radio news bit today was from the 1990s. This means there will be some very bright met officers in the relevant squad working with the FBI and following their own leads too. The Swiss lot have never prosecuted any Swiss citizen for corruption or bribery ever despite having the laws to do so on their books. This could be the first case of this happening in Switzerland.

There have been 6 people already arrested/charged who have admitted their crimes. These have no doubt plea bargained and are talking to the FBI helping with their investigation. It should lead further up the money trail to others who might lead to Blatter.

Sepp Blatter has not gone to USA for years due to a fear of arrest if he did. That's at least what was said on one radio news bit I heard today.

UEFA has 53 out of IIRC 209 votes. Africa has 56. Asia has loads too as has south America. Africa has been heavily supported financially in their development. The south African world cup was effectively brought there by Blatter. Basically a lot of money has been spent in Africa by Blatter. As a a result he's well thought of there. It is the same inn Asia and south America. Basically you have Europe/uefa, USA and Australia who hold the view Blatter must go. UEFA has 3 less votes than Africa. Blatter has the votes in the bag. He's a shoe in again.

Platini is not a good figurehead for UEFA. He's a former friend of Blatter who I heard helped him get on in FIFA and hence.UEFA. reckon he can't bring all 53 UEFA votes against Blatter anyway.

The only other candidate is Prince Ali Prince of Jordan. How transparent is he? Hmmm!

Blatter is totally anti-UK. It is why the home of football has only had one world cup back in 1966. With Blatter in power UK will never get it. If he hands over to someone he has anointed that will stay the case.

Do you think if they cancelled the 2022 and 2018 WC tournaments and gave them to other countries UK will be one of them? Never under Blatter or his anointed successor.

tangled_metal

One more thing, out of 6 biggest WC sponsors only VISA has issued a statement that kind of gives FIFA an ultimatum to clean up their act. However a former VISA sponsorship insider said on radio 4 that visa are too committed to FIFA to withdraw. Plus deals are inked well before the event so at least 4 years to withdraw I think he said.

If you're looking for parallels you can do no better than the IOC and the salt lake city Olympics. That was the turning point for the IOC. FIFA needs to look at the IOC for pointers on improving their selection for the world cup.

BTW I'm not a lot football fan. I think it's a dull game played by a lot of questionable characters run by crooks. Our own FA is not clean I reckon neither. There is a lot of distasteful events happen around clubs, tournaments, footballers and fans for my liking. A relative of mine married a sports fan. She went with him to watch cricket and rugby league which my relative thought were good family sporting events. She will never go back to watch football. She felt it was not family friendly, indeed she felt intimidated when she went to watch football live. Look at the people watching live at major UK sporting events and you'll see football is not inclusive like rugby, cricket and other sports.

Football, IMHO, needs fixing from the fans level up to the top.

DesB3rd

The statement from Visa was quite odd to listen to; I got the feeling that they would have been better off keeping the statement 100% neutral "in light of recent events we're cutting our ties" or some such - when they used phases like "disappointed" & "surprised," as if they were clueless regarding the given truth of FIFA's corruption, it made them look skin-crawlingly disingenuous.

It would have seemed bigger if they'd come out and said " this situation arose rather sooner than we expected; in truth we were hoping to be out of the picture at the point when suspension of disbelief ceased to be tenable."

mamba80

briantrumpet wrote:

TurboTommy wrote:

Apparently the death rate equates to 80 dead for each game that will be played in the World Cup. Quite disgusting.

It won't stop people going to the World Cup though. Or buying products from the companies that are endorsing it. So why should we expect anything to change?

Whichever way you look at it (and that's a excellently graphic way), that any organisation could let this go on in the tournament it oversees and promotes, without batting an eyelid, is quite beyond my comprehension.

its easy to heap all the blame on fifa but all fans and sponsors are complicit in what is basically murder for profit, same with cheap sports kit, all those workers who died in a foot wear factory in pakistan? what changed? nothing, once it stopped being a front page news, everything stayed the same, this will be the case with fifa, the WC will take place, sky bbc etc will have it on 24/7, those deaths will be swept under the carpet and life for us will move on.
what should happen is that the euro nations should break away from fifa and form their own organisation, without the europeans, the current WC setup would be finished, of course this isnt going to occur

city_boy

Ai_1 wrote:

It's mass delusion.
It's quite clearly a boring spectator sport

You're obviously a Chelsea fan, then?

markhewitt1978

Ai_1 wrote:

VinnyMarsden wrote:

....For all the good FIFA has done over the years, and lets not deny it, they have took football around the world,they have now sullied their name/organisation!!....

I don't consider soccer's popularity to be a good thing. It's mass delusion.
It's quite clearly a boring spectator sport that's given way to much exposure. It's an imposition on my life and I would like some compensation if the trauma caused to me by the existence of soccer is due, in part, to illegal activities.

Quite so. While I find the all the goings on around football relatively interesting, the game itself is so massively dull it's a wonder why it's become such a popular spectator sport. But then it all comes down to supporting your local town / country. Something that individual sports or team sports which don't represent areas don't have.

tangled_metal

Don't forget cheap cycling kit and any other sports kit too. Also not very cheap stuff can be made in sweat shops too. The ethical statements big companies have are not realistic. I know in other industries there is a big push for ethical business practices. Reporting of the use of conflict materials (or materials that could be from conflict areas) is widespread in several major industries. However all they do is get suppliers to make a declaration and leave it at that, no checking. I am sure Nike and Adidas go to all suppliers and check for fair treatment of workers just like VISA do that with FIFA events they sponsor. Yeah, right! Realism please! Money is the key to everything in the modern world. Any attempt to claim otherwise and you are a hypocrite or naive.

As far as construction deaths go on the Qatar WC, anyone know what the non-WC construction death rate is like in Qatar? Is this even at a level that is considered high for Qatar? Just curious as it may be worth putting this into perspective. Not all countries have a big push on H&S in construction. Some are probably really bad because life is cheap but construction costs and damage to the bottom line due to delays are more costly.

briantrumpet

I'm afraid we're all hypocrites to an extent - I suspect most of us would claim to care about people's and animals' working/living conditions, but when we go to buy stuff we switch into 'best deal' mode, and the ethical questions fly out of the window. For instance, how many people were posting about 'make corporations pay tax' from their iphones bought from a company that has a cash stash of $188bn simply to avoid paying tax on it? How many of us would say "yes, we care about animal welfare" but then go to Tesco and buy two chickens for £10 because it's a bargain? How many of us get on our high horses about Rupert Murdoch, but then subscribe to Sky because we can't bear to be without whatever sport he's bought the rights to?

So how many football fans will complain about FIFA corruption and the 80+ fatalities per World Cup game and yet will still watch the games?

It's scary how easy it is for our moral codes to be suppressed by other instincts.

ai_1

If you haven't seen it, look up John Oliver's piece about FIFA from last year about the upcoming world cup in Brasil. It was about how he loved soccer and couldn't wait for the world cup to start but how he felt kinda bad about it because FIFA were evil. It's very funny and pretty accurate.

If you search for "John Oliver FIFA" there'll be a you tube clip waiting for you.

bompington

briantrumpet wrote:

It's scary how easy it is for our moral codes to be suppressed by other instincts.

My moral code tells me to be glad when I buy something made by someone in a sweatshop.

Someone who has made the rational choice to work for what is usually a (locally) higher than average wage rather than, for example, be a subsistence farmer earning nothing.

That is, of course, a different issue from forcing people to work in vile and dangerous conditions.

tangled_metal

Isn't a sweatshop a vile and potentially dangerous workplace by it's very nature? I understood that a sweatshop is where people are working for low pay making items (at a high production rate) while being under pressure and threat to their livelihood. People under pressure to perform in such places are easily at risk of injury. It is low wage and pressure to produce more that kind of defines sweatshop IMHO, which makes it not entirely ethical to accept the items produced under those conditions. I do as I am a typical consumer who is only looking out for themselves. I admit that and accept it.

I do understand your point in that people are able to make a decision to work hard breaking their back as a subsistence farmer or do the same in a sweatshop with the potential to gain money and have a better life for you or yours. That is a choice but not a very nice choice. Would you like to have only those two choices in life?

There is a lot of talk about minimum wages and living wages here but TBH what we have here is so much better than the workers in factories making the clothes and kit we buy cheaply. Unions here fight for things that are not even on the horizon in a Bangladeshi sweatshop making nike or adidas boots/kit/clothing.

Off topic sorry.

ilm_zero7

Tangled Metal wrote:

As far as construction deaths go on the Qatar WC, anyone know what the non-WC construction death rate is like in Qatar? Is this even at a level that is considered high for Qatar? Just curious as it may be worth putting this into perspective. Not all countries have a big push on H&S in construction. Some are probably really bad because life is cheap but construction costs and damage to the bottom line due to delays are more costly.

as witnessed first hand - H&S in Qatar is horrendous, anyone's life is cheap unless it is Qatari, and they are seldom brought to account, when a fall guy it avaialable. But its not the relative scale of 2022 related deaths, it is the incresed quantum and the feel of the place, typified by the refusal to let Nepalese workers go home post-earthquake, for fear they wopuld not come back (they withhold passports and you cant travel without employers granting an exit visa).

rick_chasey

briantrumpet wrote:

I'm afraid we're all hypocrites to an extent - I suspect most of us would claim to care about people's and animals' working/living conditions, but when we go to buy stuff we switch into 'best deal' mode, and the ethical questions fly out of the window. For instance, how many people were posting about 'make corporations pay tax' from their iphones bought from a company that has a cash stash of $188bn simply to avoid paying tax on it? How many of us would say "yes, we care about animal welfare" but then go to Tesco and buy two chickens for £10 because it's a bargain? How many of us get on our high horses about Rupert Murdoch, but then subscribe to Sky because we can't bear to be without whatever sport he's bought the rights to?

So how many football fans will complain about FIFA corruption and the 80+ fatalities per World Cup game and yet will still watch the games?

It's scary how easy it is for our moral codes to be suppressed by other instincts.

It's not unreasonable to expect a consumer to demand the rule makers and high authorities to weed out said corruption, so that they, in their day-to-day consumption decisions don't have to trawl through enormous amounts of information before they feel comfortable with their consumption.

It is reasonable for the consumer to assume that if they are sold legally then they are produced in an ethical way.

If not, it's up to the authorities to do something. In a capitalist society there are too many purchases made in any given day to examine the provenance of every product you buy.

briantrumpet

ILM Zero7 wrote:

as witnessed first hand - H&S in Qatar is horrendous, anyone's life is cheap unless it is Qatari, and they are seldom brought to account, when a fall guy it avaialable. But its not the relative scale of 2022 related deaths, it is the incresed quantum and the feel of the place, typified by the refusal to let Nepalese workers go home post-earthquake, for fear they wopuld not come back (they withhold passports and you cant travel without employers granting an exit visa).

And any half-decent organisation would have looked at the H&S first: what are the likely outcomes of this action, and then what safeguards are in place for what they are instigating. But FIFA seem to have no morals at all, apart from making money for themselves by whatever means. They are guilty of dereliction of duty whatever they say: either they didn't ask the pertinent questions that they should have asked, or they did and and ignored the evidence they got.

For all the "H&S gone mad" moans, the drop in UK workplace deaths and injuries is significant:

Fatal injuries to employees 1974: 651, 2013/14: 85
Rate of fatal injury per 100 000 employees 1974: 2.9, 2013/14: 0.5
Reported non-fatal injuries to employees 1974: 336,701, 2013/14: 77,310

There was just one fatality in the London Olympics construction project.

mamba80

Rick Chasey wrote:

It's not unreasonable to expect a consumer to demand the rule makers and high authorities to weed out said corruption, so that they, in their day-to-day consumption decisions don't have to trawl through enormous amounts of information before they feel comfortable with their consumption.

It is reasonable for the consumer to assume that if they are sold legally then they are produced in an ethical way.

If not, it's up to the authorities to do something. In a capitalist society there are too many purchases made in any given day to examine the provenance of every product you buy.

^^^^ This..... Fifa/Blatter etc are charged with the good running of the game

from fifa's general rules of conduct...
3.1 Integrity and ethical behaviour
We all behave ethically and act with integrity in all situations, keeping in mind
that a reputation for integrity is of the utmost importance to FIFA and its
objectives.
3.2 Respect and dignity
We treat everyone with respect, and protect the personal dignity, privacy and
personal rights of every human being.

if they just stuck to those two, they d be ok

briantrumpet

Rick Chasey wrote:

It's not unreasonable to expect a consumer to demand the rule makers and high authorities to weed out said corruption, so that they, in their day-to-day consumption decisions don't have to trawl through enormous amounts of information before they feel comfortable with their consumption.

It is reasonable for the consumer to assume that if they are sold legally then they are produced in an ethical way.

If not, it's up to the authorities to do something. In a capitalist society there are too many purchases made in any given day to examine the provenance of every product you buy.

Agreed ... though the part the media can play in alerting us to organisations who either flout existing laws (either deliberately, or through poor management) gives us the power to make decisions based on our own morals. Just because an international court doesn't take action against something we personally think is reprehensible does not prevent us choosing not to support something we view as wrong. Just because Qatar has a very slack H&S culture doesn't make it OK. The information is out there for us to make moral decisions of our own.

bernithebiker

Unbelievably, he's just been re-elected......

verylonglegs

Probably not that unbelievable as he focuses his efforts on keeping sweet federation members in places like Africa and Asia whose votes outnumber those UEFA. The only way to kill FIFA off would be for UEFA to give the WC a miss. People don't watch the WC to see Cameroon play Ecuador or Algeria take on South Korea, they are waiting for a Brazil v Netherlands or Germany v Italy. The absence of such fixtures will render the tournament worthless. I doubt UEFA have the balls to do this however.

cornerblock

bernithebiker wrote:

Unbelievably, he's just been re-elected......

Here he is paying his thanks.

chris_bass

bernithebiker wrote:

Unbelievably, he's just been re-elected......

Is it really unbelievable? hugely corrupt organisation re-elect leader, would be n=much more shocking if he hadn't been!

It is a most a good thing, there is an investigation going on into corruption and it would almost make them look above board if their leader is voted out.

Hopefully the FBI are using the smaller FIFA members they have arrested to go after Sepp.

briantrumpet

Chris Bass wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Unbelievably, he's just been re-elected......

Is it really unbelievable? hugely corrupt organisation re-elect leader, would be n=much more shocking if he hadn't been!

Quite - "follow the money..." - too many people with too much to lose. The 'largesse' will have been flowing in many directions: from countries to FIFA officials, and from FIFA to other countries. If what the FBI are accusing the FIFA officials of is true, and the practices endemic, as long as the 'largesse' has been felt by a majority of the organisation, they'll not be voting to uncover the corrupt practices that have enriched them.

pblakeney

Random thought of the day.

USA has sanctions against Russia.
Russia has the 2018 World Cup.
USA want to play in the World Cup.

Join the dots at your own leasure.