How the Pee Tape explains the World Cup

On the morning of May 27, 2015, Swiss police raided the Baur au Lac Hotel in Zurich and arrested nine of the best football officials on behalf of the United States Government. In the coming days, the world would learn the corruption deeply rooted in the whole of FIFA, the governing body of global football, which extended from its higher echelons to its regional confederations to its partners worldwide.

The best football officials from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean were involved in this case, which also knocked down the senior executives of the sports marketing firms that controlled the rights of dissemination and sponsorship. the biggest events. Long-time FIFA President Joseph "Sepp" Blatter has finally resigned in shame.

This was the biggest organized corruption scandal in the history of sport and some within FIFA were skeptical. In 2010, the United States made an offer to host the 2022 World Cup, only to lose a contentious vote in Qatar. For FIFA officials, this looks like a case of green grapes.

But as the columnist BuzzFeed investigator Ken Bensinger writes in his new book, Red Card: How the United States Explains the World's Greatest Sports Scandal the origins of the The investigation began before FIFA handed the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 event in Qatar. The case had actually started with an FBI investigation into an illegal gaming network that the bureau believed was run by people related to Russian criminal organizations. The ring worked from Trump Tower in New York.

Eventually, the investigation expanded to football, in part thanks to an Internal Revenue Service agent named Steve Berryman, a central figure in Bensinger's book that reconstructed the financial transactions that constituted the backbone of corruption allegations. But first, it is the advice of British journalist Andrew Jennings and Christopher Steele – the former British spy who is now known to American political observers as being behind the infamous "pee tape" dossier now chronicling President Donald Trump's ties with Russia This has drawn the attention of the Americans to the Russian World Cup and the decades of bribery and corruption that have transformed FIFA from a modest organization with a small budget to a multi-billion dollar company. Later, the federal government arrested and overthrew Chuck Blazer, a corrupt US football official and a member of the FIFA Executive Committee. It's Blazer who helped them open the case, like Mary Papenfuss of HuffPost and Teri Thompson, co-author, in their book American Huckster based on Blazer's story in 2014 in the scandal. 19659003] Russia's efforts to secure home rights for the 2018 World Cup have never become a central part of the FBI and the case of the United States Department of Justice. Through Blazer, he focused mainly on CONCACAF, which governs football in the Caribbean and North and Central America, as well as other officials of South America

. Law enforcement officials take a look at Vladimir Putin's "Machiavellian Russia" who will do everything to get what he wants and does not care how he gets it. fact." And Steele played a role in the early aspects of the case. coincidentally, this fostered the relationship that led him to hand over his Trump file to the FBI – the record that has now helped to form "much of the investigation plan", as Bensinger says, that the Former FBI director Robert Mueller uses in his probe of Russian interference in the election that made President Trump.

Before the final of the Sunday World Cup, to be held in Moscow, HuffPost spoke with Bensinger about Red Card parallels between the FIFA affair and the # 39, current US political environment, FIFA's reform efforts, and if the idea of ​​a world football without corruption is possible

Here is a slightly edited transcript of our discussion.

You start by tackling the main conspiracy theory, namely that it was a case of green grapes from the United States that lost the holding of the Cup of the world 2022. But the original was a more traditional FBI investigation of Russian organized crime, is not it?

That's right. And there are, in a sense, strange links with everything that happens in the political sphere in our country, which is interesting, I think, because when I was telling the book, it was especially before the elections. It was a time when Christopher Steele's name meant nothing. But what I understood over time was that it had nothing to do with the green grapes, and the FBI agents who opened the file did not really care about lose the World Cup. The theory was that the US investigation had started because the United States had lost to Qatar, and Bill Clinton or Eric Holder or Barack Obama or someone had ordered an investigation.

The survey began in July or August 2010, four or five months before the vote. It starts because this FBI agent, who is a long-time guy in the Genoese crime squad, gets a new team – the Eurasian Organized Crime Squad – which focuses mainly on Russian affairs. It's a team that is pressed for resources and does not do much because, under Robert Mueller, who was the FBI director at the time, the FBI was not interested in the fight against traditional crime. They were interested in what Mueller called transnational crime. So, this agent looked for cases that he thought to score points with Mueller. And one of the cases they do involves the Trump Tower. It is this illegal poker and sports game that is partly running out of the Trump Tower. The main guy was a Russian gangster, and the FBI agent had gone to London – that's how he'd met Steele – to find out more about this guy. Steele told him what he knew, and they parted amicably, and the farewell was, "Listen, if you have any other interesting leads in the future, let me know . "

Steele had already been hired by the British bid for the 2018 World Cup at this point. What Chris Steele is starting to see in the name of the English offer is that the Russians are doing, as it is described in the book, strange and questionable things. It sounds funny and it triggers an alarm for Steele. So he calls the FBI agent and says, "You should watch what happens with the bid for the World Cup." And my feeling is that the FBI agent, at that time, says something like, "What is the World Cup? And what is FIFA?" "

He really did not know much, to the point that when he comes back to New York and opens the file, it's a bit small and they do not take it too seriously. They were stuck trying to figure out how to make a case against Russia. Meanwhile, the vote arrives and Russia wins its bid for the 2018 World Cup.

So it's no longer the result of the US government's obsession, if you will, with Russia and Russian crime in general?

The story would be different if this particular agent belonged to a different team. But he was an ambitious agent who took control of a team and was trying to make a name for himself. It was his first management job, and he wanted to do big business. He decides to go after Russia in Russia as a way to make a splash. It is tempting to think of this as a reflection of the great US obsession with Russia, which certainly exists, but it is also a different time. It was in 2009, 2010. It was during the Russian reset . These are the first two years of Obama's term. He hugs Putin and talks about how they will make things work. Russia plays well. The public image is rather positive during this period. This was not, "Russia is the big enemy". It was more like, "Russia can be our friend!"

What I find interesting in this case is that, what we see in Russia's attempt to win the World Cup by any means is the first type of Russia sign that we understand now exists, which is a kind of Machiavellian Russia that will do anything to get what she wants and does not care how he does it. It was like a dress rehearsal for that.

Steele became this kind of family name in politics in the United States, thanks to the Trump record. But here he is in the scandal of FIFA. Was it a coincidence, because he's the guy from Russia and we're investigating Russia?

This is one of those things that looks like an accident, but much of world history depends on these accidents. Chris Steele, while he was still at MI-6, investigated the death of Alexander Litvinenko, who was the Russian poison polonium spy. It was Steele who conducted this investigation and determined that Putin probably ordered it. And then Steele is hired because of his expertise in Russia by the English bid, and he becomes the canary in the coal mine saying, "Uh oh, guys, it's not going to be that easy, and things are rather sinister for you. "

It's essential, I do not know if it would have affected Chris Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to assemble the Trump file." But it is certain that the relationship he built because In the case of FIFA, the FBI took it more seriously, and the same FBI agent to whom he gave the trick to FIFA was the agent who he called in 2016 to say, "I have another record."

The FBI must get a crazy number of wild and extravagant advice all the time, but in this case, it's a hint Christopher Steele, who proved his worth very significantly to the FBI.It's just a year after the arrests in Zurich, and the FBI and the DOJ feel very good in the FIFA business, and they feel very good in their relationship with Christopher Steele

If we think about the meaning of the record – and I realize that we have learned that the FBI had already started to to look into Trump and Russia before having it – it is also clear that the record has massively increased the size of the investigation, led to the mandates of FISA where we are listening to Carter Page and d & # 39; others, and formed a large part of the investigation plan for Mueller today. Steele proved his worth to the FBI at the right time, and this led to his decisive future work.

At the Inquiry itself: In 2010, FIFA votes to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and you quote (now) the Vice President of the FIFA Jérôme Valcke "This is the end of FIFA". Some FIFA members have seen this vote as a major turning point in its history?

I think he and others recognize this increasingly shameless attitude of crime within FIFA. FIFA. They had left an organization where people received bribes and dirty things, but did so very carefully behind closed doors. And he was in transition to one where impunity was so rampant that people thought they could do anything. And I think in his mind, awarding the World Cup to Russia under very suspicious circumstances and also attributing to Qatar, which by definition does not have the right to host this tournament, he felt to him and to others as a step too far. [19659003] I do not think he was aware in advance that the United States mocked it, but he acknowledged that it was getting out of hand. People were distributing bribes in broad daylight, and as corrupt as these people, they did not tend to do so.

You write at the beginning of the book that it all started with elections, like FIFA. President, João Havelange in 1974. He uses modern marketing and media to start making FIFA the organization we know today. Is it fair to say that this corruption scandal lasted four decades?

I did not think of it that way, but in a way you are right. The FIFA culture we know today has not started yesterday. It started in 1974 when this guy was elected, and in a few years, the corruption begins. And it starts with a bribe at Havelange, or an idea that he should be bribed. And it starts a whole culture, and people all learn from the same model. Dominoes have fallen over time. This is not a new model, and things were getting more and more out of control over time. FIFA has successfully met these challenges over the years. There is an attempt to revolt at FIFA in 2001 or 2002 that Blatter completely closed. The FIFA secretary general accused Blatter and other people of being involved in corruption or allowing corruption, and it seems that the executive committee would turn against Blatter and reject him for change everything. But they were all blinking, and Blatter dispensed his own justice by getting rid of his number 2 and setting up people who would be loyal to him. The effect of these things was more shameless behavior.

Everyone knew that was happening. Why did not it clear up sooner?

It was an open secret. I think it's because football is just too big and important in all these other countries. I think that other countries have simply never managed to find a solution. The best you would get were some deputies in England holding indignant press conferences or some auditions, but nothing ever came out. It's too much of a political hot potato because football elsewhere is so much more important than the United States. People are terrified of offending the gods of FIFA.

There is a story about how Andrew Jennings, this British journalist, wanted to broadcast a documentary detailing FIFA's corruption just a week before the 2010 vote, and when the British bid and the British government took it possession, they really tried to smother the press. They begged the BBC not to broadcast the documentary before the vote, as they were terrified by FIFA. This reflects the kind of attitudes that all these countries have.

Many things that have resulted from corruption and corruption, or that have been made to facilitate bribery and corruption, have helped develop the sport here. The Gold Cup, the Women's World Cup, the growth of the World Cup and the Copa America. For the average fan, these are "good" developments for the sport. And yet, they were only created to make these guys rich. How do you reconcile that?

Well, that reminds me of questions about Chuck Blazer. Is it all bad or all good? It's a bit of both. The US National Women's Team would probably not exist without it. The Women's World Cup probably would not be either. Major League Soccer got its first positive-income television deal courtesy of Chuck Blazer.

At the same time, he was a corrupt crook who was stealing a lot of money that could have been used for gambling. And so, is it good or bad? Probably worse than good, but not everything is bad.

This applies to the Gold Cup. The Gold Cup is a totally artificial thing that was ultimately invented as a money making scheme for Blazer, but in the end he probably benefited from football in this country. So, everything is clearly not bad.

You would like to think that we could take those things that end up being a good idea, and clean them up and wash the bad ones

Blazer is a fascinating figure, and it seems like there are some hints of sympathy for him and some of the other corrupt players in the book. Were all these guys hardened criminals, or were they wrapped up in the workings of the company, and how had it worked for so long?

There is no doubt that he is greedy. But there is something about the culture of corruption that can almost sneak up on a person. Blazer had a longer story. He always had a touch of corruption about it. But I think a lot of sports officials came because they liked the sport and that they wanted to participate in its management. And then they found out that people were lining up and they thought, "Everyone is doing it, I would be a fool not to participate in that."

And when they end up being arrested and charged, this n & # It's not the same as a mafia guy in Brooklyn. Many of these guys were really surprised. If they thought they were doing something wrong, they did not think it was something that we cared about. They are obviously not innocent, and they have gone to great lengths to hide it. But at the same time, impunity came from a culture of believing that it was good to do that. And it was really a case where the FBI and the DOJ had torn the rug out of these people

One point that you emphasize in the book is that fundamentally, it was a crime against the development of sport, especially in the poorest nations and communities. How has FIFA's corruption essentially deprived the money of the development of lower levels of football?

This is something that took me a little while to understand. But when I understood how the corruption took place, it became clearer to me. The money stolen in the sport is not just a bribe. Let's say I am a sports marketing firm, and I buy you a million dollars to sign a rights contract with me. The first element is the million dollars that could have been spent on this sport. But it is also the cost of opportunity: what would the value of these rights have been if it had been taken on the open market instead of a bribe?

All this money is withdrawn from the sport. And the second thing was to travel to South America and see the football conditions for fans, for kids and for women. It was really revealing. There are stadiums in Argentina and Brazil that are absolutely decrepit. And people would explain, the money that was supposed to come to these clubs never comes. You have kids still playing with the proverbial ball made of rags and duct tape, and little girls who can not play because there are no facilities or leagues for women at all. When you see that, and then you see guys making millions of kickbacks and also marketing guys who are doing a lot more to pay the bribes, I've started to mr. indignant about it. FIFA always attaches to children and the good of the game. But it's absurd when you see how they work. Money does not go to children. He will make the football officials rich.

The former President of the United States, Sunil Gulati, appears a few times. He is friends with Blazer, he ends up sitting on the executive committee. Is there a chance that American football is wrapped up in it, and we do not know it yet?

I will say that I do not believe that Gulati is a cooperator. People are wondering this and it is reasonable. It is curious to see how this guy who is in the shadow of Blazer and who has so much power, and who literally had offices in the CONCACAF offices, could be clean. And he may not be clean, but more likely he is the kind of guy who has decided to turn a blind eye to all this corruption and pretend not to have seen it.

That said, there are legitimate issues working in a manner strangely parallel to much of the corruption we have seen in South America, the Caribbean, and Central America. The relationship between the United States Soccer, MLS and this entity called Soccer United Marketing – this relationship is very debatable. MLS has the rights of the United States Soccer Federation for years and years to come. There has been no call for open offers for these rights since 2002, I think that's the case. SUM has MLS, but he also has rights to the United States Soccer Federation for men and women. There is a lot of money to be won, and SUM gets all of that, and as they have not launched it for a public offering, it is really not clear that US soccer is taking full advantage of his product. And in this sense, it corresponds to the kind of corruption we have seen

What are you doing about FIFA's reform efforts?

FIFA is fighting to try to reform itself. I am wary of the current FIFA President, Gianni Infantino. This is a guy who grew up to 6 miles from Sepp Blatter. His career echoes that. He was UEFA's general secretary, which is reminiscent of the post of FIFA secretary-general. Both are very similar in many ways, in their ambitions and their role as sports bureaucrat. Their promises to win elections by spreading money on the spot is just too similar. That said, I think Infantino recognizes that this culture is what led to these problems, and he sees an organization that is in financial chaos right now. This World Cup will bring in a lot of money, but the last three years have been massively negative on income. They are losing money because of sponsors fled en masse and massive bills. I think he sees a path to financial security for FIFA by earning more money and being more transparent.

But he still talks about favoritism and the distribution of money, and federations around the world are still caught for bribes. The Ghana Football Federation was disbanded a week before the World Cup because a documentary came out that showed senior officials taking bribes on a secret camera. It's still a deeply corrupt culture. Steps are being taken, but it looks like more than 42 years of corruption will not be cleaned up in two or three years.

On this note, one of the marketing managers of the book says: This will always be paying off. That has happened, because I am cynical about FIFA's willingness or ability to clean everything up. According to your reports, do you believe that there will always be spinoffs, given the structure of our major international sports organizations?

It's like, "What is human nature? When massive amounts of money mingle with a massively popular cultural phenomenon, is it going to be clean? I would like it to be different, but it seems a little hopeless. How do you regulate soccer, and who can monitor that to make sure people behave in an ethical, clean and fair way that benefits everyone? It is no coincidence that every international sports organization is based in Switzerland. The answer is because the Swiss not only offer them a huge tax break, but they also say, "You can do what you want and we will not bother you." That's exactly what these groups want. Well, how do you adjust that?

I do not think the United States said, "We are going to regulate football." I think that they thought that if we could give a huge kick in football, They can create so much public and political pressure on them that the sponsors will run away, they will feel that they are not Have no choice but to react and clean up their act. It's kind of a kick where it hurts.

My cynicism about someone's ability to clean it up made me feel sorry for Steve Berryman, the IRS agent who is one of the principal investigators and one of your main characters. He said that he would never stop until he cleaned up the sport, and I could not help thinking, "That will not happen never."

That's right. It will never happen. People like him are motivated. This is not just football for him. He cared so much about it. He thought, "I have to do it until the end, otherwise it's a failed survey." I think people like him sometimes recognize that they can never make it happen, but that's not the case. Is always discouraging, every new corruption we see, and these guys think: "I've worked so hard, and …"

The World Cup is taking place right now, it's in Russia, and corruption is just part of the story. Do you think the book and the upcoming Qatari World Cup will reinvigorate this conversation, or are people simply resigning themselves to believe that's what FIFA is?

There is a part of this resignation. But also, the unfortunate reality of FIFA is that when the World Cup unfolds, all football fans around the world forget all their anger and just want to watch the tournament. For three and a half years, everyone is making fun of FIFA's situation, and during the World Cup, everyone just wants to watch football. There could be some revival in the coming months when the next stupid scandal appears. And I think Qatar could reinvigorate more of that. Il y a une petite partie de moi qui pense que nous pourrions encore voir le Qatar dépouillé de la Coupe du Monde. Cela susciterait certainement beaucoup de discussions à ce sujet

Vous parlez à la fin du livre d'un changement d'orientation vers la corruption dans la fédération asiatique. Est-ce que le ministère de la Justice et le FBI sont en train d'arranger les choses ou est-ce qu'il y a encore des enquêtes plus approfondies?

Il y a des signes clairs qu'il y en a plus. C'est encore en train de nettoyer les pièces de l'ancienne affaire, mais mardi, une entreprise de la Floride a plaidé coupable à deux chefs d'accusation de fraude dans l'affaire de la FIFA. C'était une compagnie qui était connue à partir des actes d'accusation écrits, mais personne ne savait qu'ils allaient plaider coupable, donc c'était une nouvelle partie de l'affaire. Cette compagnie va payer 25 millions de dollars en amendes et confiscations, et c'était une sorte de signe de la part du ministère de la Justice qu'ils ont fini ce qu'ils allaient faire.

Cette pièce à la fin du livre avec le mec qui s'en va le Pacifique Sud est un gars nommé Richard Lai. Il vient de Guam et il a plaidé coupable en mai ou en juin 2017. C'était aussi un indice fort, qu'ils regardent la Confédération asiatique de football, qui comprend le Qatar. Je sais par des sources que les coopérateurs dans l'affaire discutent encore activement avec les procureurs, et passent encore beaucoup d'heures avec eux pour discuter de nombreux aspects de l'affaire. Donc je ne serais pas surpris d'en voir plus. Cela dit, un grand nombre de personnes qui ont participé à l'affaire au début sont passées à autre chose. Il est naturel d'avoir du roulement, et les gens qui héritent d'un cas ne sont pas nécessairement aussi émotionnellement impliqués que ceux qui ont commencé. Donc à un moment donné, ça pourrait devenir vieux.

Mais pas Steve Berryman. Il continue toujours

Steve Berryman ne s'arrêtera jamais.