Hopefully they do some deals with the guys who've been arrested.

Away from the press conference, the US department of Justice has released a statement to the media saying 14 defendants have been charged with "racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies" over a 24-year period. Four individual defendants and two corporate defendants have pleaded guilty. Acting US attorney Kelly T Currie said: "After decades of what the indictment alleges to be brazen corruption, organised international soccer needs a new start. "It needs a new chance for its governing institutions to provide honest oversight and support of a sport that is beloved across the world, increasingly so here in the United States.
"Let me be clear: this indictment is not the final chapter in our investigation."

Most of the schemes alleged in the indictment relate to the solicitation and receipt of bribes and kickbacks by soccer officials from sports marketing executives in connection with the commercialization of the media and marketing rights associated with various soccer matches and tournaments, including FIFA World Cup qualifiers in the CONCACAF region, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the CONCACAF Champions League, the jointly organized CONMEBOL/CONCACAF Copa América Centenario, the CONMEBOL Copa América, the CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores and the Copa do Brasil, which is organized by the Brazilian national soccer federation (CBF). Other alleged schemes relate to the payment and receipt of bribes and kickbacks in connection with the sponsorship of CBF (Brazil National Team) by a major U.S. sportswear company, the selection of the host country for the 2010 World Cup and the 2011 FIFA presidential election.

This is epic

Qatars recent and upcoming World Championships hosted include swimming, handball (2014), boxing (2015), cycling (2016), athletics (2019) before the World Cup, despite not having any real presence in any of these sports. And that's only the major ones. For the handball world championships, they bought nine players, who all had competed for other nations previously. They went on to finish second in the tournament.

They are a shady bunch but the real villains are FIFA for getting in bed with them. Nevermind the death tally amound the slave labourers that keeps going up. Hopefully it's not too late for a revemped FIFA to pull the plug on this whole thing.

Awesome. It's a shame though that Blatter looks set to escape once again.

Rampage wrote:

Qatars recent and upcoming World Championships hosted include swimming, handball (2014), boxing (2015), cycling (2016), athletics (2019) before the World Cup, despite not having any real presence in any of these sports. And that's only the major ones. For the handball world championships, they bought nine players, who all had competed for other nations previously. They went on to finish second in the tournament.

They are a shady bunch but the real villains are FIFA for getting in bed with them. Nevermind the death tally amound the slave labourers that keeps going up. Hopefully it's not too late for a revemped FIFA to pull the plug on this whole thing.

The news conference is live now.

Former Uefa president Lennart Johansson has called for the World Cup 2018 to be given to England instead in the wake of recent allegations.

Calvin Masterson @calvinmasterson

For anyone who didn't know: the Atty General & FBI Director are rarely (if ever) at same press conference. The USA is all in. 93% conviction

Calvin Masterson @calvinmasterson 

It's pretty clear that this is just the beginning. The FBI did the same thing when they tackled the mob. Flip people & go up food chain

Calvin Masterson @calvinmasterson 

FIFA is finally going against an opponent that isn't scared of them, which should make FIFA scared

Lets hope this guy is right and FBI will sort this mess out, they are probably the only ones who can take FIFA down it's current form. A good day for football this, the situation has seriously got out of hand in recent years. The more money that has flowed into the game the worse things have got at the top.

Klaus wrote:

Former Uefa president Lennart Johansson has called for the World Cup 2018 to be given to England instead in the wake of recent allegations.

2022 to USA and everyone is happy 😉

Oh yeah, you know the end game is to reward the USA / UK with one of the upcoming World Cups.

Fucking hell, Russia to Qatar would be a plague on the beautiful game.

Would be nice, but I don't think it's realistic. We're too far in now. Stadiums are being built, too much time and money effort spent to reverse any decision now.

I don't see how the world cups, particular the 2018 one, can be given to anyone else. It's a bit too late.

While the vote itself maybe a sham, the contracts that have been signed with individuals and contractors are not.

I think England is one of few nations in the world that would be able to take over the World Cup with just three year's notice though. Several stadiums are already good enough to support the crowd, and the infrastructure in London was improved a lot by the olympics. Even on a bad day the country is fundamentally better suited than Russia for an event of this magnitude.

Spurs and Liverpool stadiums will probably ready by then as well, even without those two probably got more than enough to cope with a World cup at short notice.

One thing is for sure, if the Americans can take that world cup from Russia they will do everything in their power to make it happen!

JazzG wrote:

One thing is for sure, if the Americans can take that world cup from Russia they will do everything in their power to make it happen!

Maybe they'll stage a fake World Cup in 2017. 

Bear in mind the investigation is likely to take a long time to conclude, so we will be far too close to 2018 to change anything.

One of those arrested has agreed to be extradited, 20 years in prison probably doesn't appeal so will be interesting to hear what FIFA get out of him.

With the FBI being involved the sponsors will be worried, they could put out their BS statements about their concerns before and people would forget. Now there role will be under a lot of scrutiny, as will with media companies.

Russia already getting a bit nervous, speaking out against the US for "illegally applying its legal force far beyond its borders".

Out of interest, what makes the FBI and the US Department of Justice so strong in these matters - where others have failed?