How the Worst Values of Sports Are Taking Over America
TomDispatch
Diego Maradona was a champion of poor and oppressed people around the world as well as a global soccer icon.
In 2015, FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion. Its corruption extended from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to cases of embezzlement worldwide. The author even interviews its bent former president Sepp Blatter.
The defiant display of Palestinian flags in Glasgow last week by Scottish fans of the Celtic soccer team raised over $200,000 in donations online, all marked for two Palestinian charitable groups. Activist fans of Scotland's Celtics soccer team - the working-class, historically progressive community already facing punishment for flying Palestinian flags at a recent game against Israel to protest the Occupation - have launched the fundraiser.
Criminal investigations are welcome, but they must result in democratic reform at both Fifa and regional and national football associations. It is time for the politics of Fifa to be extended beyond the eternal insiders of the dysfunctional football family, the royal houses of the Gulf, and the stooges of authoritarian regimes and commercial interests that pass for representatives of the world’s football nations.
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