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TOP OF THE AGENDA
U.S. FIFA Indictments Reverberate Worldwide
U.S. Justice Department charges against high-ranking FIFA officials on Wednesday have raised questions (WaPo)
about the security of the global banking system and the legitimacy of
upcoming World Cup events, law enforcement officials said. The
investigation into racketeering and bribery charges has explanded to financial institutions (Bloomberg)
allegedly involved in facilitating bribes, tax evasion, and other
misconduct. Charges that the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was the
subject of a $10 million bribe have led to additional scrutiny (NYT) for the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 games to Russia and Qatar. Some U.S. lawmakers issued a call to boycott Russia's World Cup (Moscow Times), and Russian President Vladimir Putin said the FIFA officials' arrests were an example of the United States meddling abroad.
ANALYSIS
"Vladimir
Putin will go apoplectic on this issue. If Russia’s hosting rights are
withdrawn—as they must be, and as they should have been already after
his invasion of sovereign Ukraine—he will treat the legal assault on
FIFA as an assault on Mother Russia itself," argues Tunku Varadarajan in Politico.
"Human
rights advocates' worst fears about Qatar seemed to be confirmed
as Qatar began building the infrastructure to host the Cup, and reports
of migrant worker deaths started to pile up. The numbers, to the extent
that we know them, appear startling: A Guardian investigation last year revealed that Nepalese migrant workers were dying at a rate of one every two days," writes Christopher Ingraham at Wonkblog.
"If
nothing else, this will highlight FIFA’s authoritarian-friendly
practices, tarnish their practices, embarrass their cronies, and perhaps
suggest even more robust actions to heal a long-festering pustule in
the world of global governance. Which, in the world of international
politics, counts as a win," writes Daniel Drezner in the Washington Post.
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