FIFA Officials to Be Charged With Corruption Over Host Selections

FIFA, a multibillion-dollar organization that governs soccer but has been plagued by accusations of bribery for decades, had several top officials arrested early Wednesday.

By Jonathan Dienst and M. Alex Johnson
Wednesday, May 27, 2015

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Numerous top current and former FIFA officials are expected to be charged Wednesday on fraud and bribery related charges linked to the organization's oversight of the World Cup and other international soccer tournaments, U.S. law enforcement officials told NBC News.

Swiss newspapers, as well as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, reported that Swiss authorities had already begun arresting several officials in Zurich with plans to extradite them to the U.S.

FIFA officials have been under investigation by the FBI for several years.

Officials of the Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, have been under investigation by the FBI for several years as questions have swirled over whether top officials were paid large bribes to select the host country for World Cup final round dating back years.

Russia is set to host the 2018 tournament, while Qatar was chosen to host in 2022. Brazil hosted the games in 2014 and South Africa in 2010. The selection of Qatar was widely questioned because of the tiny emirate's blistering heat, human rights record and lack of history in the sport, along with the close ties of its ruling family to FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who is expected to win re-election this week.

FIFA has grown grew from a small nonprofit organization that did little more than award the World Cup hosting rights to arguably the most powerful and richest sports organization in the world since Blatter was first elected president in 1998.

It isn't known whether Blatter is to be among those indicted when criminal charges are filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. officials told NBC News, although allegations of corruption have followed him for years. A one-time FIFA executive from the U.S. had been cooperating with the FBI in helping to target leading FIFA officials.

Last year, FIFA closed its own internal investigation, saying there was no corruption in the World Cup bidding in a 42-page summary of a report by Michael J. Garcia, a former U.S. attorney for Manhattan.

Garcia resigned in protest over FIFA's refusal to release his full 430-page report, which he filed in September, and he has expressed deep frustration that a nondisclosure agreement bars him from publicizing his own findings.

Earlier this month, ESPN quoted a former media consultant for Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid as saying she was in the room as Qatari officials offered $1.5. million each to two members of the Esxecutive Committee for their votes.

In 2010, The Sunday Times of London published video of an Executive Committee member accepting what he thought were bribes from a Times reporter acting undercover.

Last year, The Sunday Times reported on millions of secret FIFA documents that it alleged proved that Mohammed bin Hammam, a Qatari former member of the Executive Committee, bribed FIFA officials to the tune of $5 million in return for their support for Qatar's bid. FIFA's redacted version of Garcia's report cleared Qatar of all wrongdoing.

Blatter has since called awarding the World Cup to Qatar a "mistake" but has said the decision won't be revisited. "You know, one makes a lot of mistakes in life," he said in a Swiss TV interview.

Among the many current and former FIFA officials who have been accused of corruption is Chuck Blazer, a former executive vice president of the U.S. Soccer Federation who became a member of FIFA's all-powerful Executive Committee.

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