The "Beautiful Game" Turns Ugly: The FIFA Corruption Scandal and Mob Museum Digital Exhibit
From September 2015 to February 2016, The Mob Museum in Las Vegas hosted a temporary display on the FIFA corruption scandal. The temporary display is now closed, and replaced by a display on Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo’s prison escape, but the exclusive video from the Museum’s display is now available online.
While allegations of corruption have been made about FIFA for more than a decade, its activities were finally confirmed by U.S. FIFA representative Chuck Blazer in 2013. Blazer admitted to taking bribes to ensure South Africa would host the 2010 World Cup and agreed to wear a wire to record FIFA conversations. As a result of his cooperation, a May 2015 indictment by new U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch charged 14 top-ranking soccer officials and sports marketing executives with taking more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks over 25 years.
The indictment was made based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—known as the RICO statute—the federal law that has been used to prosecute organized crime in the United States. In 2014, U.K. journalist Andrew Jennings compared the practices of FIFA’s leadership to the Mob in his book, “Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family.”
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