The bizarre decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively, is just the tip of the iceberg:
FIFA corruption matters… not because the integrity of the [Executive Committee] makes much difference to the average American or European fan, but because FIFA isn’t a closed system. Its decisions, however farcical in themselves, open the door for better or worse things to happen elsewhere. Old men fluttering about knighthoods in Asunción lead to exploitation and murder in South Africa. “Society is full of devils,” Blatter once said, “and these devils, you find them in football.” For all that they act like minor Dickens villains, FIFA executives are not sequestered in a novel; they impact the real world.
It puts in perspective the behavior of American sports teams. Showing a blind eye to drug use and extorting new stadiums from cities under threat of moving seem tame by comparison.
