Juan Villoro
FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich is a metaphor for its cover-ups: two floors see the light of day, while the other five are underground.
We are looking at the VIP version of organized crime. This explains figures like Chuck Blazer, an American executive with a hustler’s beard and weighing 130 kilos, who rented an apartment in the Trump Tower for $18,000 a month and another one for $6,000 for his cats.
Blazer served as the general secretary of CONCACAF. In 2015, the FBI investigation known as “FIFAgate” uncovered a $150 million bribery scheme orchestrated by the portly soccer official in our region. Blazer was found guilty, along with 13 other officials, and died of cancer in 2017.
Given its lack of transparency and authoritarian control, FIFA has not hesitated to make deals with dictators. Mussolini, Franco, Videla, Putin, the Emir of Qatar, and the autocrat Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia have all been on its list of friends.
According to the brilliant analysis by Quico Toro, a Venezuelan political scientist, FIFA is a ravenous parasite that exploits the body it inhabits until it is nearly extinguished.
After the 2015 scandal, Gianni Infantino took over the organization. He did away with the bulging envelopes of dollars that helped secure host cities and found a more lucrative way to exploit the world’s most popular sport. In one of his frequent delusional outbursts, he said he identifies with those who criticize the powerful because, as a child, he was discriminated against for having freckles. Was anyone moved by this epidermical connection to injustice? When he was criticized because ticket prices reached thousands of dollars, he offered to bring a Coca-Cola and a hot dog to anyone who paid for them, as if that meager reward were of any use.
His predecessor, Joseph Blatter, was a sophisticated gangster who knew how to ally himself with one of the greatest soccer players in history, Michel Platini. Infantino, on the other hand, is a charlatan who serves the interests of the elite who own global soccer. Quico Toro compares him to Gordon Gekko, the protagonist of the movie *Wall Street*, who is convinced that “greed is good.”
FIFA demanded that host cities in the United States cancel all major events for one year before the World Cup and up to three months afterward. The same applies to Canada. According to Toro, Montreal had to cancel its Jazz Festival and its Grand Prix.
In Mexico, FIFA operates like an occupying force and demanded the creation of a two-kilometer “social cleansing” perimeter around the Azteca Stadium, forcing the residents of Santa Úrsula to enter and leave their homes with a safe-conduct pass. In addition to the state of siege, construction projects were imposed to replace the cobblestones with asphalt. Rain, which used to drain through the gaps between the cobblestones, now causes flooding.
Mexico has made a public investment of about 53 billion pesos for the World Cup. Of this amount, 23 billion belongs to Mexico City. For months, we endured construction work just to reach a light rail system that doesn’t work, a Metro station at the Hidalgo stop decorated with chandeliers worthy of Juguetibici’s plastic palace, and an airport where every column has been turned into an advertisement. To make matters worse, the flooding reveals that not enough funds were allocated to unclog the drains.
Occupied by teachers, the capital has a tourist occupancy rate of barely 60 percent. The main beneficiaries of the World Cup will be the television networks and, of course, FIFA, which enjoys tax-exempt status in our country. In total, this mafia-like “nonprofit organization” will manage between 11,000 and 14,000 million dollars, which, for tax purposes, qualify as donations.
Infantino travels on a Qatar-provided plane without knowing what he’s offering in return. One of his most questionable traits is his false policy of harmony. He invented a Peace Prize for Trump on the eve of the attack on Venezuela and the bombing of Iran, and banned Haiti’s jersey days before the tournament because he found it “warlike” (the design paid tribute to the heroes who raised the flag of independence). There is only one criterion for punishments and rewards: what brings in money.
Raise your hand if you want to share in the latest Ali Baba’s Cave: FIFA’s “honor” box!
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