How Is Soccer Corrupt

Corruption in the “Beautiful Game”
Cheaters never win, unless it is in sports. Soccer has a tradition of something called fair play. Unfortunately that fair play only transfers onto the field. Recently there have been reports that have uncovered decades of bribery totaling over $150 million (Mills). How is it possible that a sport so influential such as soccer can have corrupt leaders. This is not surprising though when you take into account that ex president Sepp Blatter has been re-elected four times. Like John Dalberg-Acton said “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Soccer has the power to bring people from different cultures together, but the corruption, match fixing, and bribery in the excess of millions of
When you hear that an organization such as FIFA has been plagued by bribery you expects the players to be the most upset and want to have some sort of reparation. Surprisingly, FIFA does not consider the players the victims of the consequences of bribery. FIFA claims that they, not the players, are the true victims. The U.S. has gotten a hold of a good amount of money that was given up by FIFA officials that admitted to have accepted bribes over the last few years. Now FIFA wants that money back. According to USA TODAY, ” FIFA submitted a 22-page claim to the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York on Tuesday that seeks a big share in restitution from more than $190 million already forfeited by soccer and marketing officials who pleaded guilty in the sprawling corruption case” (USATODAY.com). Those $190 million could be even more when the sentences are handed down to those who pleaded guilty and from dozens of officials currently indicted but who have denied bribery charges or are fighting extradition” (USA TODAY). The number could be eye watering when or if all of the people involved in this scandal are caught and sentenced. The $190 million that FIFA is asking for is not just for one thing, FIFA is asking for different amounts of money for different reasons. In some documents it is
What if that person never gets caught? What if that person goes on to fix between 80-100 matches? That is the story of the notorious match fixer from Singapore, Wilson Raj Perumal. Perum started betting on matches at around the age of 19, he got hooked on it fast. He did not like to looe thought, that is when he started fixing matches. He started locally at first, but soon he started fixing matches at bigger and more important events. Perumal says that the internet contributed to his growth. He says, “We could see all these matches around the world ... I had the opportunity to target vulnerable countries ... people who were prone to accept bribes. So I registered a company and started e-mailing associations and building relationships” (Don Riddell). Perumal shows just how easy it is to fix a match now-a-days with all of the technology that we have at our disposal. Perumal had 50 of the 209 associations that FIFA had at the palm of his hand ready to be bribed to fix a match. Perumal blames FIFA for its own problems with bribery by saying that, “Football is no longer a sport. It is more like a business now. So I think we're just trying to make money out of this business. People want to win and they will do anything just to get a result” (Riddell). Treating a sport like a business and putting profit over anything else was bound to land FIFA in some trouble. This is the case