14 Fifa officials arrested over bribery and corruption allegations, and the US Justice Department say figures are around $150 million
Following the raiding of the FIFA CONCACAF headquarters by FBI officials, the US Justice Department have filed a 47 counts corruption charges against 14 top officials of the world’s football governing body.
The Department of Justice stated that the corruption at FIFA includes cases of bribery linked to Brazil’s national team and its contract with a U.S. sportswear company reported to be Nike.
There have a lot of questions concerning the awarding of the 2022 World Cup hosting rights to Qatar ahead of countries like Australia and the USA. According to Loretta Lynch, the US Attorney General, the bidding process for the Brazil 2014 World Cup was corrupt, and biddings for hosting and sponsoring previous and the next two World Cups, have all also been marred by similar practices.
“Two generation of FIFA officials including the then presidents of two regional confederations under FIFA, used their positions of trust within their selective organizations to solicit bribes from sports marketers, in exchange for the commercial rights to their Soccer tournaments” she said.
These recent developments in FIFA have led to the perpetual banning of the CONCACAF president Jack Warner, as well as the ruling by the FIFA Ethics Committee to suspend the FIFA president Sepp Blatter. A new FIFA presidential election is to be held on the 26th of February 2016.