Jeffrey A. Thinnes (jthinnes@jtiinc.net) is CEO of JTI, Inc. in Great Falls, VA.
“We will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA…We need to implement good governance and transparency.”[1] Those were the words of Gianni Infantino in February 2016, as he succeeded the beleaguered Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA, the international governing body of football (soccer). Less than two months later, hopes of long-awaited reforms were already dashed.
Still in his infant shoes, Infantino whined about his $2 million salary offer (remember that FIFA is a nonprofit organization). He also insisted on the right to fire nominally independent Ethics Committee members who oversee FIFA officials and who investigate corruption claims. This led to the resignation of Domenico Scala as head of FIFA Compliance. In his resignation statement, Scala said, “It will henceforth be possible to impede [ethics] investigations against a single member at any time, by dismissing the responsible committee members or by keeping them acquiescent through the threat of a dismissal.”[2] So much for restoring the image of FIFA.
Infantino’s disdain for independent ethics and compliance oversight has continued unabated. More recently, he fired three Ethics Committee members, including the chairman, who were raising concerns about corruption — and about Infantino himself. How does he get away with it? Like Blatter before him, he keeps the people around him fat and happy. In addition to jet-setting on lavish expense accounts to exotic places around the world, the 37 members of his executive council receive, on average, $250,000 per year for attending three meetings annually. This is roughly equivalent to what independent board members of S&P 500 companies earn, although FIFA is a fraction of their size.
Corporate partners ignore their own standards of integrity in feeding the FIFA beast
More than 40 FIFA-related individuals and entities have been charged with wire fraud, racketeering, bribery, money laundering, and more since May 2015. Twenty-four have since pleaded guilty, while others still await trial. This certainly qualifies FIFA as the world’s number one sports organization when it comes to corruption. Senior US prosecutors accused FIFA officials of hijacking international football in “a World Cup of Fraud” that pocketed them $150 million.
Yet, corporate sponsors and media companies have committed billions of dollars to keep FIFA alive, accounting for roughly 80% of FIFA’s overall budget. True, a few companies like Sony, Emirates, and Johnson & Johnson turned off the tap. But in the eyes of other big brands (e.g., Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa, and McDonalds), the risk/reward calculation is favorable enough to keep them paying to play.
FIFA’s major activity and revenue source has long been the World Cup tournament. Accusations of major bribery, fraud, corruption, and waste are a regular part of these quadrennial showcases. Three years after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the country is still rocking from corruption claims related to stadiums, roads, building contracts, and more. Six of the 12 stadiums built for Brazil’s World Cup are subjects of investigations for bribery and other crimes. In December 2017, the former heads of Brazil’s soccer federation and South American soccer were convicted in US federal court for accepting millions of dollars in exchange for the media and marketing rights to FIFA tournaments.[3]
Recently, the Russian opposition party, Yabloko, suggested that of the $3.5 billion in Russian infrastructure investments to prepare for the 2018 World Cup, $1.6 billion went illegally into the pockets of Putin cronies. Additionally, human rights groups accuse Russia and Qatar (the controversial host of the 2022 World Cup) of using slave labor to build the needed World Cup infrastructure under life-threatening conditions.[4] ,[5] But when FIFA is kept fat with a constant flow of funds, it has no real impetus to bring true reforms to these tournaments. Instead, large sums from the billions of sponsor and media dollars that could be used to improve lives in troubled societies pad personal bank accounts and feed the bloated egos of the elite officials looking out primarily for each other.